Trade Minister Gina Raimondo told the CBS show “Face the Nation” on Sunday that she was telling people to “call FedEx” if they asked her if supply chain problems would mean Christmas gifts might not be delivered.
Partial transcript as follows:
MARGARET BRENNAN: Supply chains around the world have been severely disrupted over the last few months. We have all these bottlenecks. Why don’t they have ports? Why aren’t the truckers? Why didn’t it get stuck?
RAIMONDO: Yes, good morning. So this is, as you say, a major topic for Americans. This is a complex-complex issue. I mean, we closed our economy last year during COVID. You know, I was governor at the time. We have closed the economy of Rhode Island. We haven’t seen that yet. This therefore meant the closure of factories. People went home. You can’t turn the economy back overnight. So, it takes a little time. I will say we are making progress. You know, thanks to the President’s leadership, we now have ports open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and the two largest and busiest ports.
BRENNAN: But there are reports that the president has announced the opening 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, that this isn’t actually happening in California, that there are still backups. The business community is complaining about this.
RAIMONDO: There are backups. And like I said, that can’t be fixed overnight. But the important thing is, you know, basically, the supply chain and logistics are run by the private sector. People tell me, will Christmas presents be delivered? To which I say, call FedEx. You know – the government doesn’t do that. That’s what we do, and the president is committed to it. We use all the tools in our tools to support and help unlock the door. The area I am very focused on is the lack of semiconductors. We are leaning towards this increasing transparency in the semiconductor supply chain to ensure that we do everything in our power. But this is a direct consequence of COVID. This is temporary and we are working every day to eliminate these supply chains.
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