Bloomberg Surveillance · Thursday, September 24, 2026
Michael Froman discusses the evolving interdependence between the U.S. and China, noting a shift towards selective decoupling. He highlights the need to reduce dependence on China for critical minerals and pharmaceutical ingredients, acknowledging that this may lead to a more expensive global economy.
“There's a lot of interdependence, clearly, from both sides. I think there's selective decoupling going on. I think we've realized that all the emphasis on integration and efficiency, while it delivered more products at cheaper prices for the American public, for the American consumer, very much to the benefit of low-income Americans in particular, it created certain dependencies. And now we're looking strategically to say, from a national security perspective, we cannot be dependent on China for the critical minerals and magnets that go into the tip of our missiles, let alone into automobiles and other products. The question is, what other areas do we really need to decouple from? We are completely dependent on China for the active pharmaceutical ingredients that go into most of our drugs. Does that mean we have to produce all of them ourselves? Can we rely on allies and partners to produce them as well? But diversification? resilience of supply chains. That is going to certainly be one of the major focuses of going forward. By the way, that means we're going to be living in a more expensive world, higher prices, but that trade-off may well be worth it.”