Throughout much of my career, I have warned that the United States cannot remain secure if it allows hostile or unreliable actors to control the systems and supply chains that fortify our nation. Cement may not command headlines like missiles or cyber-weapons, but it is no less fundamental to America’s ability to deter adversaries, withstand crises, and prevail in times of conflict.
Cement is a truly strategic material — the literal bedrock of American hard power. It forms the foundation of our runways and hangars, our ports and shipyards, our missile silos and hardened command centers, our power plants, refineries, and energy infrastructure. It anchors the hospitals, emergency operations centers, and data centers that must remain resilient under attack or amid a catastrophe if our government is to continue operating.
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In an era of intensifying great‑power competition with China, Russia, and Iran, we can no longer afford to treat this material as a generic commodity that can be sourced from wherever it is cheapest on a given day. A country that cannot guarantee a secure, reliable cement supply for its critical infrastructure is a country that has deliberately created a dangerous vulnerability in its own shield.
RESTORING AMERICA — USMCA RENEWAL: AMERICAN MANUFACTURING IS A NONNEGOTIABLE
Today, roughly one‑fifth to one‑quarter of all cement used in the U.S. is sourced from foreign suppliers. Many of these shipments originate from nations that do not share our values or our interests — countries perfectly willing to weaponize trade and supply chains as tools of pressure and coercion.
Our adversaries clearly understand the power of industrial capacity. The Chinese Communist Party, in particular, has spent years using subsidies, state‑directed overproduction, forced labor, and other tactics to dominate strategic sectors and dismantle competitors. That is not free enterprise; it is a long‑term campaign to force other nations to rely on Beijing for critical materials and technologies.
If a hostile regime — or even an “ally of convenience” vulnerable to pressure from Beijing or Moscow — controls a meaningful share of the materials we need to build and repair military bases, ports, power facilities, and data centers, that is not a business issue. It is a serious national security failure. In a crisis, those supplies could be cut off, delayed, or made conditional on political concessions, handing our adversaries the very leverage they seek to wield against us.
President Donald Trump’s Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has now launched Section 301 investigations into structural overcapacity, forced labor, and other unfair trade practices across key manufacturing sectors. Section 301 exists to confront exactly this kind of malign behavior — when foreign governments deploy “unreasonable or discriminatory” practices that burden U.S. commerce and, by extension, U.S. security.
Cement must be treated as a pillar of that broader security picture. If hostile or strategic competitors are leveraging industrial policy and state subsidies to capture a significant share of our cement market, that is not merely an economic concern; it is an emerging strategic dependency. An “America First” response demands using Section 301 and other available tools to push back, raise the cost of predatory practices, and restore the domestic capacity we need in case of an emergency.
Throughout my tenure in intelligence and national security, I have witnessed how wars, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters mercilessly expose weaknesses in a nation’s infrastructure. Following the COVID‑19 pandemic, over 40 states experienced acute cement shortages in 2022, up from just 28 states in 2021, exposing the dangerously narrow margin for error in our current system. In a major conflict or a coordinated cyber and kinetic attack on infrastructure, that margin disappears. America’s ability to repair runways, rebuild bridges, harden bases, and restore power would depend not only on our resolve but on shipping lanes and foreign interests we do not control.
An America First national security strategy demands that we secure the foundational materials that make our power possible. For cement, this necessitates a pivot toward what I would call “cement independence” — the guaranteed ability to meet our essential national security and emergency response needs from domestic production under U.S. law and oversight.
The Trump administration’s Section 301 investigations are a necessary step, but we must go further. We must recognize cement explicitly as a critical infrastructure input in all national security planning and mandate the use of U.S.‑made cement for defense, energy, and critical infrastructure projects funded by the federal government. The American taxpayer should not be asked to fund runways, ports, and bases built upon the foundation of foreign vulnerabilities.
If we are serious about restoring American strength and deterrence, we must look beyond conventional weapons systems and focus on the foundational assets that make our defense possible. Cement is one of those assets. Building a strong, secure domestic cement industry is not just sound economic policy — it is a vital national security imperative.
Fred Fleitz was chief of staff to the National Security Council during the first Trump administration.
