IV 
117TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 1480 
Promoting stronger economic relations between the United States and 
countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
NOVEMBER 16, 2022 
Mr. SIRES submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Com-
mittee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Energy 
and Commerce, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speak-
er, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the ju-
risdiction of the committee concerned 
RESOLUTION 
Promoting stronger economic relations between the United 
States and countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. 
Whereas, to maintain the role of the United States as a glob-
al economic leader and protect the national security in-
terests of the United States, the United States must 
strengthen economic relations with countries in the West-
ern Hemisphere; 
Whereas ongoing supply chain disruptions resulting from the 
COVID–19 pandemic demonstrate the need for the 
United States to increase supply chain resiliency through 
reshoring and nearshoring initiatives; 
Whereas, in 2019, the People’s Republic of China was the top 
supplier of goods imported into the United States, pro-
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•HRES 1480 IH 
viding significant quantities of rare earth minerals, phar-
maceutical ingredients, medical equipment, and other 
goods vital to the economic prosperity and national secu-
rity of the United States; 
Whereas the COVID–19 pandemic and production outages 
and shipping disruptions in the People’s Republic of 
China have jeopardized worldwide access to critical goods, 
contributing to an unprecedented, ongoing supply chain 
crisis that has exposed the severe risks of concentrating 
global supply chains in the People’s Republic of China; 
Whereas Congress has raised concerns about the reliance of 
the United States on global supply chains based in the 
People’s Republic of China; 
Whereas the People’s Republic of China has shown its will-
ingness to use critical supplies as a political tool to ad-
vance the goals of the Chinese Communist Party, includ-
ing when the People’s Republic of China— 
(1) threatened to withhold rare earth mineral ship-
ments to Japan; and 
(2) utilized personal protective equipment and vac-
cines as a diplomatic tool; 
Whereas findings made pursuant to a supply chain review re-
quired by President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., under Execu-
tive Order 14017 (86 Fed. Reg. 11849) and released on 
June 8, 2021, recommended that, in addition to expand-
ing domestic production capacity, the United States Gov-
ernment use diplomatic and financial tools to cooperate 
with allies to create more diverse, resilient, and secure 
supply chains; 
Whereas 8 of the 13 countries in the world that recognize 
Taiwan are in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 
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•HRES 1480 IH 
nearshoring initiatives can help decrease the susceptibility 
of such countries to coercive economic pressure from the 
People’s Republic of China; 
Whereas the United States has free trade agreements in ef-
fect with 12 countries in Latin America and the Carib-
bean, more than in any other geographic region, pro-
viding significant incentives to relocate international sup-
ply chains that cannot be relocated to the United States 
to Latin America and the Caribbean; 
Whereas, in addition to existing free trade agreements and 
the geographic proximity of countries in Latin America 
and the Caribbean to the United States, there are several 
significant advantages for the United States Government 
and United States entities to relocate supply chains from 
the People’s Republic of China to the Western Hemi-
sphere, including— 
(1) reduced distance to markets in the United 
States, which will lower freight costs, enable quicker 
adaptability to fluctuating consumer demand, and reduce 
the energy used to transport goods; 
(2) longstanding bilateral ties and shared democratic 
values, which lessen the risk of geopolitical disruptions to 
supply chains; 
(3) comparative advantages for sourcing and manu-
facturing key critical goods, including rare earth min-
erals, pharmaceuticals, medical goods, and semiconduc-
tors, when there is a historical inability for such goods 
to be entirely sourced or manufactured in the United 
States; and 
(4) access to a highly qualified and young working- 
age population; 
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•HRES 1480 IH 
Whereas the report entitled ‘‘Widening the Aperture: 
Nearshoring in Our ‘Near Abroad’ ’’ released by the Wil-
son Center in April 2021 provided evidence that increas-
ing and strengthening supply chains regionally, particu-
larly in Colombia, Mexico, and other countries in the 
Caribbean and Central America, will, on average, create 
more jobs in the United States than international supply 
chains located in other geographic regions; 
Whereas switching as few as 15 percent of imports into the 
United States from the top 10 source countries of such 
imports outside of the Western Hemisphere to countries 
in Latin America and the Caribbean would increase ex-
ports from Latin America and the Caribbean by 
$72,000,000,000 annually, helping the region recover 
from the effects of the COVID–19 pandemic and reduc-
ing pressures encouraging migration to the United 
States; 
Whereas, despite existing and growing opportunities for coun-
tries in Latin America and the Caribbean to become cru-
cial actors in global supply chains, including technological 
advances that have diminished the need to produce in 
countries with a low cost of labor, challenges to 
nearshoring remain, including— 
(1) concerns about the rule of law, corruption, and 
criminal activities that discourage foreign direct invest-
ment or significantly raise the costs of shifting produc-
tion to the region; 
(2) concerns about compliance with and enforcement 
of international labor and environmental standards; 
(3) underdeveloped physical and digital infrastruc-
ture; and 
(4) regional economic fragmentation; 
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•HRES 1480 IH 
Whereas the governments of several countries in Latin Amer-
ica and the Caribbean, including Colombia, the Domini-
can Republic, and Mexico, have sought to strengthen eco-
nomic relations with the United States and launched ini-
tiatives to incentivize nearshoring; 
Whereas the Inter-American Development Bank (commonly 
known as ‘‘IDB’’) has prioritized efforts to encourage 
nearshoring in Latin America and the Caribbean, includ-
ing by— 
(1) making economic integration and the strength-
ening of regional supply chains 1 of 5 core pillars in the 
agenda outlined in the document entitled ‘‘Vision 2025, 
Reinvest in the Americas’’; 
(2) including nearshoring as a business line of IDB 
Invest for the first time in the history of IDB; 
(3) hosting a high-level dialogue with more than 500 
private sector leaders on December 2, 2020, to assess 
how to increase production capacity and supply chain re-
silience in the region; and 
(4) launching the largest private sector coalition in 
the history of the IDB to explore opportunities for rein-
vesting in countries in the Western Hemisphere, includ-
ing through nearshoring initiatives and a toolkit to 
incentivize and finance nearshoring activities in the West-
ern Hemisphere; and 
Whereas the United States Government can leverage diplo-
matic, foreign assistance, and financing tools to strength-
en the participation of Latin American and the Carib-
bean in global supply chains and address challenges to 
nearshoring, including through the activities of the 
United States Agency for International Development and 
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•HRES 1480 IH 
the United States International Development Finance 
Corporation: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) recognizes that increased tensions between 
the United States and the People’s Republic of 
China and the COVID–19 pandemic have— 
(A) exposed severe vulnerabilities attrib-
utable to overreliance by the United States and 
other countries on supply chains based solely or 
mainly in the People’s Republic of China; and 
(B) heightened the importance of the 
United States diversifying its supply chains 
through reshoring and nearshoring initiatives to 
increase resiliency against future disruptions; 
(2) emphasizes that reshoring efforts of suffi-
cient scale to increase domestic production capacity 
and relocate supply chains to the United States re-
main critical and should be encouraged and imple-
mented; 
(3) emphasizes that— 
(A) nearshoring efforts should be pursued 
in a complementary fashion to better achieve 
more resilient, diverse, and secure supply 
chains, particularly for goods unlikely to be 
manufactured in the United States; 
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