The Trump Administration Focuses on the Strategic Importance of the Chemical Sector

Highlights:

• Trump administration wakes up on chemicals: A senior Commerce official publicly acknowledged past administrations failed to recognize how foundational the chemical industry is to aerospace, defense, pharma, and manufacturing.
• EPA’s TSCA reviews have handed China a competitive edge: Overly restrictive implementation has blocked domestic chemical production, helping China surge from 11% to over 50% of global chemical manufacturing while the U.S. has fallen behind.
• Congress is moving to fix it: Bipartisan TSCA reform proposals would modernize EPA’s review process — a critical step toward rebuilding supply chain resilience and reducing dependence on foreign chemical sources.

For years, policymakers in Washington, DC assumed chemical inputs would always be available, always regulated adequately, and sourced reliably into perpetuity. That assumption has quietly frayed, and a senior Trump administration official recently highlighted how vitally important the chemical industry is to the United States’ economic growth.

Earlier this month, Steven Haines, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Analysis, spoke at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Chemistry Solutions Forum, where he discussed the importance of the U.S. chemical industry to the rest of America’s economy. “Past administrations didn’t fully recognize how fundamentally important chemicals are to the auto, aerospace, pharmaceutical, and many other industries,” Haines said. “But I know that the administration has woken up to it, and has now been focused on it.”

The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), as amended in 2016, governs which new chemicals U.S. companies can produce and how they can be used. In practice, EPA’s implementation has restricted access to compounds that are not commercial conveniences but critical inputs. These are chemicals that, if unavailable domestically, force manufacturers in defense, aerospace, and pharmaceuticals to source from abroad.

As Charlotte Bertrand of the American Chemistry Council testified before the House Committee on Science, Space & Technology in January, EPA’s TSCA reviews have too often resulted in a limiting of domestic production of chemistries essential to national security and aerospace applications. The consequences show up in the numbers. China has surged from 11% to over 50% of global chemical manufacturing sales in two decades, while the U.S. has slipped to a distant second.

Congress is currently considering various proposals to reform TSCA. Proposals in both chambers would revisit how EPA reviews chemicals, including timelines and the interaction between TSCA and other federal safety rules. The much-needed reforms would help address the broader importance of balancing timely reviews with public health protections, and recognize the implications if critical chemicals continue to be sourced from abroad.

Chemical supply chain resilience is no longer a niche regulatory concern. It is an industrial policy and national security priority. Getting the policy architecture right, with smarter TSCA implementation, is part of how the U.S. reclaims ground it has ceded, and ensures that vitally important and domestically produced chemicals are available to U.S. industrial producers. 

More from Pinpoint:

• EPA has Weaponized TSCA, Ignoring the Science to Achieve a “Political Outcome”
• China has Leveraged TSCA to Propel Itself Ahead of the U.S. in Chemical Manufacturing
• Combatting Leftover Biden-era Environmental Rules to Reshore Domestic Production