『Costa Rica and the US Supply Chain: A Discussion with Andrew Crawford of Procomer』のカバーアート

Costa Rica and the US Supply Chain: A Discussion with Andrew Crawford of Procomer

Costa Rica and the US Supply Chain: A Discussion with Andrew Crawford of Procomer

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 Costa Rica and the US supply chain Contact the Central American Group if you want to establish a manufacturing facility in Costa Rica. Procomer in Houston provides valuable services to foreign direct investors Andrew CrawfordTrade CommissionerProcomeracrawford@procomer.com The Central American Group: Today, we have Andrew Crawford with us. Andrew is the Trade Commissioner and Director for Texas and the Pacific region of the US for the Costa Rican Trade Promotion Agency called Procomer. Today, we will have a conversation touching upon the Costa Rica and the US supply chain. Andrew, welcome. Could you tell us a bit about yourself, your background, and your organization? Andrew Crawford: Steve, thank you for having me. I’m excited to have this conversation with you. I’ve been representing Costa Rica’s interests in trade and investment for the last 20 years in different capacities and countries. Our main focus is to ensure that we can develop capabilities in the export ecosystem and, at the same time, ensure that we create adequate policies to bring foreign direct investments to Costa Rica. So currently, I’m based in the United based in Houston, Texas, and like you said, also taking care of the Pacific region of the United States. In my position, I do significant work on how the Costa Rica and US supply chain interact. The Central American Group: Okay, to start things off, let’s talk a little about trade and geopolitics because that’s on many business people’s minds these days. What can you tell us about Costa Rica and how the Costa Rica and the US supply chain are intertwined? Andrew Crawford: Let me try to elaborate a little on that one, Steven, because I read a fascinating article a few days ago from Shannon K. O’Neill. She’s the Vice President and a Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council of Foreign Relations. She came up with great insights in that article, Steven. What fascinated me the most is that China currently processes 85 % of the critical minerals that go into high-tech devices worldwide. Also, it has 77 % of the world’s battery manufacturing capacity. That is going to be linked to electric vehicles. The other interesting thing from that article is that the United States authorities started assessing the Costa Rica and US supply chain in vital areas. And critical minerals, which is one that I just mentioned, large capacity batteries, semiconductors, and pharmaceuticals are not in the very best position right now in terms of the Costa Rica and the US supply chain. That tells us what we’ve seen after the pandemic in terms of certain levels of political instability in different regions of the world, a good number of societies and countries not feeling comfortable with what they’re seeing. The chip crisis we had a couple of years ago skyrocketed the prices of many consumer goods. All of these things together brought the idea to the United States it needs to rethink its supply chains. That is a great takeaway from the article, as we see Costa Rican authorities jumping into a different mode for foreign relations from what they saw in the past. Right now, I think everybody pulls the brakes and says it’s time to rethink the idea of heading to Asia in terms of foreign trade as the central core of our trade development in the future and put on the breaks and say that it’s time to get back into a very good position with the United States in terms of critical industries and a relationship that we can build on of the capacities that Costa Rica has. The Central American Group: One of the things that I want to bring up because it’s very important is related to what you were saying about rare earth minerals and how they relate to Costa Rica and the US supply chain. A couple of weeks ago, I happened to read an article in the, believe it or not, the Cowboy State Daily, which is the Wyoming newspaper. According to this publication, there’s been a discovery of rare earth minerals in Wyoming, near a place called Wheatland, that could make the United States the world’s largest producer. So maybe that problem can be solved domestically. According to what I read, the discovery is 2.34 billion metric tons. So, just to put that in there as something we should keep in mind regarding rare earth minerals and our access to them. We may have greater access to them in the future because of this particular find. Andrew Crawford: That is a great thing to address. And that China complements the role closer locations can play for the US. We know this process for transforming minerals into useful middle to intermediate goods takes some time. And the combination of efforts that the United States can make from their local capacities and closer allies can be a game changer in the long run, Steven. The Central American Group: You mentioned a little bit about Costa Rica and the US supply chain. In a broader perspective, what opportunities do you see for Latin America as ...
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