Overview
Jeff Weiss, who is co-chair of Steptoe’s trade policy and negotiations group and leads Steptoe's Supply Chain team, co-authored an article titled "Effective Supply Chain Management in an Era of Decoupling" for Bloomberg Law. The article, published January 29, highlights the unstable nature of global supply chains, due to disruptions from Covid-19, China-US trade tensions, and other factors. It notes that, as a result, a significant number of efforts are already underway in the US and other countries to consider de facto policies of “de-coupling” – namely, mandating or incentivizing the replacement of traditional long and linear supply chain networks with regionally concentrated supply chain clusters to achieve health, national security, or other objectives. The article then discusses how companies can be proactive by creating an integrated, holistic approach to supply chains and manage their supply chains on their terms.
