National Guard Could Be ‘Helpful’ Easing Ports Congestion: Raimondo

that Americans are challenged at the moment” by the congestion at the ports and the rising prices for consumer goods that have ensued, she said. As Rhode Island governor, Raimondo deployed the National Guard last year “very effectively during COVID,” she said. “The National Guard could potentially be very helpful. They have tens of thousands of people that have commercial driver’s licenses to theoretically drive trucks,” plus “logistics experts” with the “arms and legs to help with the loading and unloading” of shipping containers, she said. “We don’t have a plan specifically,” but using the National Guard “certainly would not be a long-term option,” nor would it ever “displace workers who are doing this job,” she said. “But right now we have a backlog, and we have to look at everything that would help us unstick the backlog.” There’s no “magic elixir” to fix the global semiconductor shortage, which is an “urgent” crisis and a “huge problem” for American consumers and businesses, said Raimondo. Chips “underpin everything we do in a day,” she said. But the U.S. makes “zero percent of the most sophisticated chips on our shores,” and 70% of the “leading-edge” chips that Americans consume come from Taiwan, she said. “I find that to be an almost terrifying prospect,” amid the looming threat the island nation faces from China, she said. "We are exceedingly vulnerable, and getting even more so as our economy becomes more digital.”