FARNBOROUGH and WASHINGTON — Amidst industry concerns that a new executive order on critical minerals has an unrealistic timeframe, a key Pentagon official is saying the department is prepared to work with companies — as long as they are making a good-faith effort to comply with the order.
“What we need to do is commit to companies to say, ‘Look, how are you going to go ahead and resolve this problem through friendshoring, through domestic shoring, through changes in suppliers?” Michael Cadenazzi, the assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy, told Breaking Defense Wednesday on the sidelines of the Farnborough Airshow.“And if there’s a gap, a legitimate gap, [and] you have a plan and you need a window to see you through [to] bridge that gap, that’s what we want to know,” he added. “But it’s about the plan, it’s about the mitigation plan for the long haul.”
Cadenazzi’s comments came two days after the White House released a new executive order essentially giving companies until the start of 2027 to stop using critical materials and minerals from Russia, Iran, North Korea and most notably China.
More specifically, that EO told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that he has six months to craft policy and implementation guidance requiring all prime contractors and subcontractors to map out and trace “all components, parts, equipment, software, and materials back to the origin of raw materials in their supply chains.”
