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A sign for the Food and Drug Administration is seen in Silver Spring, Maryland

Ambitious Plan Sees Israel as Heart of Middle East Medical Supply Chain for US

A concerted effort is underway to turn Israel into the hub of a potential regional US medical supply chain that reduces American dependence on China.

The heart of the campaign is a bipartisan push on Capitol Hill to mandate and fund the opening of a US Food and Drug Administration office in Israel, which would assist companies within Israel and Arab countries that recognize it to produce medicines and medical supplies for the lucrative US market.

The drive is spearheaded by the United States-Israel Education Association, a small faith-based nonprofit organization headquartered in Alabama. Over the past decade, the USIEA has brought senior congressional leaders to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, has worked with the same lawmakers to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in US funding for the Iron Dome anti-missile system, and has developed ties between Israeli and Palestinian business communities.

The COVID-19 pandemic and disruption to global supply chains underscored how dependent the US is on China for everything from surgical masks to semiconductors. “Those are very precarious and tenuous supply lines,” Peter Pitts, former associate commissioner of the FDA, told Israeli media by phone.

“We have to be able to protect our supply of necessary medical products to the United States. And theoretically, by working with Israel, for example, or the United Arab Emirates or Morocco or Bahrain, we can move some of the manufacturing for these essential medical products out of China; for example, have them manufactured in countries more friendly to the United States.”(TOI / VFI News)

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. - Romans 8:28