Joseph Robinette Biden

“ The executive action I’m signing today will not only require that companies make more of their components in America, but that the value of those components is contributing to our economy, measured by things like a number of American jobs created and/or supported. At the same time, we’ll be committed to working with our trading partners to modernize international trade rules, including those relating to government procurement, to make sure we can use — we can all use our taxpayer dollars to spur investment that promotes growth and resilient supply chains. ”

“ So let’s invest in them once again. I know we’re ready, despite all of the — all we’re facing. I have never been more optimistic about the future of America than I am today.
Given even just half a chance, the American people, the American worker, has never, ever let the country down. Imagine if we give them a full chance. That’s what we’re going to do.
I’ll stop here and sign the executive order, and then come back and take some of your questions.
This executive order is entitled “Ensuring the Future Is Made in America, by Americans — All of American Workers.” ”

“ When we buy America, we’ll buy from all of America. That includes communities that have historically been left out of government procurement — black, brown, Native American small businesses and entrepreneurs in every region of the country. ”

“ American manufacturing was the arsenal of democracy in World War Two, and it must be part of the engine of American prosperity now. That means we are going to use taxpayers’ money to rebuild America. We’ll buy American products and support American jobs, union jobs. ”

“ We’ll also make historic investments in research and development — hundreds of billions of dollars — to sharpen America’s innovative edge in markets where global leadership is up for grabs — markets like battery technology, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, clean energy. The federal government also owns an enormous fleet of vehicles, which we’re going to replace with clean, electric vehicles made right here in America by American workers, creating millions of jobs — a million autoworker jobs in clean energy — and vehicles that are net-zero emissions. ”

“ We have to work our way through because, as I’ve said 100 times, there is no ability in a democracy for it to function without the ability to reach consensus. Other- — otherwise it just becomes executive fiat or battleground issues that are — get us virtually nowhere. ”

“ And there’s a law that’s been on the books for almost a century now: to make sure that that money was spent — taxpayers’ dollars for procurement is spent to support American jobs and American businesses.
But the previous administration didn’t take it seriously enough. Federal agencies waived the Buy American requirement without much pushback at all. Big corporations and special interests have long fought for loopholes to redirect American taxpayers’ dollars to foreign companies where the products are being made. ”

“ I’d prefer these things to be bipartisan, because I’m trying to generate some consensus and take sort of the — how can I say it? — the vitriol out of all of this. Because I’m confident — I’m confident, from my discussions, there are a number of Republicans who know we have to do something about the food insecurity for people in this pandemic. I’m confident they know we have to do something about figuring out how to get children back in school.
There’s just — there’s easy ways to deal with this. One, if you’re anti-union, you can say it’s all because of teachers. ”

“ We will use a national network of manufacturers — called a Manufacturing Extension Partnership — that’s in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, to help government agency connect with new domestic suppliers across the country. This is a critical piece of building our economy back better and including everyone in the deal this time, especially small businesses that are badly hurting in this economy. ”

“ No one wants to give up on their position until there’s no other alternative. They either have to make a decision that they don’t do what — they don’t support what is being proposed, or they insist on what they have, or they let it all go away, fall down. ”

“ But we have to meet that goal of a million a day.And everything points that we’re going to have: A, the — enough vaccine; B, enough syringes and all the paraphernalia needed to store, keep, inject, move into your arm the vaccine; three, a number of vaccinators, people administering the vaccine, which is not an easy task of those who have — those facilities, like the nursing homes and hospitals — they have people do it, but they don’t have the capacity to do everyone. ”

“ So it’s not so much about the idea that teachers aren’t going to work. The teachers I know, they want to work. They just want to work in a safe environment and as safe as we can rationally make it. And we can do that, and we should be able to open up every — every school, kindergarten through eighth grade, if, in fact, we administer these tests. ”

“ And — but it’s going to be a logistical challenge that exceeds anything we’ve ever tried in this country, but I think we can do that.I feel confident that, by summer, we’re going to be well on our way to heading toward herd immunity and increasing the access for people who aren’t on the first — aren’t on the list, all the way going down to children and how we deal with that. ”

“ All those mechanical things are really — they sound simple, but they’re all consequential when we’re trying to get out a minimum of 100 million vaccinations in 100 days and move in the direction where we are well beyond that in the next 100 days so we can get to the point where we reach herd immunity in a country of over 300 million people. ”

“ And it’ll have the added advantage, I might add, of putting millions of people back to work – all those mothers and fathers that are home taking care of their children, rather than go to work. Even when they can work, they’re not able to do it unless they have the luxury of working distance-wise, like many of us do. ”

“ And thirdly, it’s really important that we have the fora, the place, the facility, the circumstance where people can show up, stand in line, and get their vaccine without having to stand in line for eight hours — being able to pick up the phone, call the pharmacy, and get your name on the list, et cetera. ”