“Friend-Shoring” To “Next-Dooring”
October 30, 2022
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland convened on June 20, 2022, where the pair championed a new era of “friend-shoring” as a way to transform global supply chains in the post-pandemic world. In contrast to the predominant current purchasing strategy that attempts to meet quality standards at the lowest cost possible, “friend-shoring” (aka “ally-shoring”), according to Secretary Yellen, “is the idea that countries that espouse a common set of values about international trade [and] conduct in the global economy should trade and get the benefits of trade so we have multiple sources of supply and are not reliant excessively on sourcing critical goods from countries where especially we have geopolitical concerns.”