Richard Cappetto & James Will
It has been two years since Pres. Joe Biden issued Presidential Determination 2023-06, which invoked the Defense Production Act (DPA) to stimulate U.S. investment in the manufacture of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and related technologies. The policy identified a critical technology shortfall that, if left unaddressed, would “severely impair national defense” and undermine the American warfighter.
In issuing the determination, Biden built upon the comprehensive assessment of the defense industrial base initiated by Pres. Donald Trump under Executive Order 13806. That report singled out the domestic PCB industrial base as “aging, shrinking, and failing to maintain the state of the art,” noting that “some advanced high-density interconnect products [are] simply not producible in the U.S.”
Unfortunately, too little has changed since the Biden declaration. The United States continues to marginalize investments in the PCB industry and related technologies that are crucial to U.S. military superiority and mission-critical functions carried out by warfighters. The lack of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) participation in a sector that is vital to national security means the vulnerabilities that have plagued defense electronics for many years still persist today.
Indeed, the U.S. PCB industry continues to struggle for survival, creating alarming vulnerabilities for the defense industrial base.
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