American Journal of Transportation, August 11, 2026
President Trump recently signed Executive Order 14415, “Securing America’s Defense Supply Chains and Ensuring Domestic Acquisition of Critical Materials”, which states that “the United States must secure its supply chains against physical, cyber, and economic subversion”, and that finished equipment and “the critical materials and components necessary to manufacture, maintain, sustain, and repair that equipment, are sourced domestically or from allied nations.” Among other provisions, the Executive Order states that the Department of War will, with the help of the defense industrial base, engage in supply chain mapping and illumination that will “map national security vulnerabilities as they relate to the sourcing of key raw materials or other links in the supply chain, using any tools and technologies to include artificial intelligence to assist in doing so.”