National Economic Council Head: Many Supply Chain Issues Reflect That Americans Are ‘Able to Buy Goods Again’ and ‘That’s a Good Thing’

 

On Tuesday’s “PBS NewsHour,” National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said many of the supply chain issues “are actually a reflection of the fact that we are moving more goods, more products through the American economy now than at any time in history, significantly higher than before the pandemic. That’s a good thing. It reflects the fact that Americans are out there and able to buy goods again.”

Deese said President Biden has been working with companies to fix the supply chain issues, “But I would also underscore the economic momentum and progress that we are making is real. We’ve seen 5.6 million jobs created. The unemployment rate is down to 4.6. That’s two years faster than most experts [expected]. And a lot of these supply chain challenges are actually a reflection of the fact that we are moving more goods, more products through the American economy now than at any time in history, significantly higher than before the pandemic. That’s a good thing. It reflects the fact that Americans are out there and able to buy goods again.”

He continued, “We’re going to work through those challenges. And we are on that every day in the short term. But we think we can focus on both the short-term and the medium and longer-term challenges. Part of why we’re in this problem is, we haven’t invested in building our infrastructure so that we have more resilient ports, more resilient roads and bridges around America. We can do both of these things. That certainly is what we’re focused on.”