*> ...how you define "critical manufacturing"? This is a good question, and IMHO it's about threat-modelling. Three events come to mind: pandemic, war with Chi

*> ...how you define "critical manufacturing"? This is a good question, and IMHO it's about threat-modelling. Three events come to mind: pandemic, war with China, and a Carrington Event[1]. The last one is interesting because it would destroy most electrical infrastructure, and it's not clear that the US retains the ability to manufacture those components. I'm not sure, but I don't think huge transformers have a ton of components, so your other (valid) concern about dependencies wouldn't apply in that case. Fabs are at least somewhat similar in that they don't recombine a huge variety of components in different ratios like Shenzen does. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event