What to watch for with Trump's Buy America order
By
Nick Wakeman
IT might be exempt from Trump's Buy America order -- probably -- but there are still issues you need to watch.
My colleague over at our sister publication FCW has a great explainer on the potential impact of the Trump administration’s Buy American executive order.
FCW Editor-in-Chief Troy Schneider describes the statutory exemption most of IT enjoys because it is a “commercial” item. But he rightly points out that there is still plenty of room for confusion.
There is an issue of awareness because many agencies don’t seem to know that there is a broad exemption on IT.
Schneider does a good job of reviewing the challenges of determining where IT products are made – what is called “provenance.”
No matter where something is made there is still the issue of supply chain security, which Schneider also reviews.
Here the issue touches on category management and how can help secure the supply chain by pulling in more data on products.
For IT, the supply chain is multi-layered, which obviously adds to the complexity.
Schneider’s report provides a good overview. I encourage you to read it.