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WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo wears only watches made by Bulova, which fired her scientist father, closed the Rhode Island factory, and moved production to China in 1983.
The watches give Raimondo, a former Rhode Island governor, a sense of responsibility as President Biden’s de facto technology minister, focusing on adding state-of-the-art factory jobs currently abroad.
“It was a tribute to my father and reminded me that we need to do more to get good manufacturing jobs in America,” Raimondo said in an interview.
Biden tasked Raimondo with making the United States the world leader in computer chips. America’s place at the top of the world as an economic and military power – as well as its political fortunes – may depend on its performance.
The computer chip has become the essential component for automobiles, medical devices, phones, toys, washing machines, weapons, and even some watches. But a global famine is driving growth and fueling inflation. Without computer chips that act as keys to today’s economy, the United States could be dwarfed by China and other countries that support semiconductor industries.
To end the famine, 50-year-old Raimondo must bring back chip manufacturing alongside solar panels and batteries, assuming these industries are key to prosperity. That means consulting with semiconductor managers almost daily, tracking data on factory shutdowns in Asia, seeking additional government support for these industries, and making their department more than just a general business ambassador.
“If we do our job right, and I believe we will, 10 years from now you will basically see a more vibrant, larger and revitalized manufacturing industry,” Raimondo said. “It’s a national security issue that we don’t make any leading semiconductors in America, we don’t make enough solar panels in America, we don’t make critical batteries in America. This leaves us vulnerable, not just economically.”
Raimondo’s tenure in Commerce has been high profile for a department some presidents care less about.
The previous secretary was declared a murderous negotiator, but Wilbur Ross was best known for falling asleep at events for President Donald Trump and trying to explain tariffs by holding a can of soup on television. The Obama administration has spent a full year with only one acting secretary.
Raimondo bonded with Biden, who often quoted his own parents when setting his policies. Political allies noted their own ambitions after being interviewed last year as Biden’s prospective candidate. The Commerce Department could be the stepping stone of a Democratic Party that is increasingly being shaped by women with college degrees.
“Someone like the President, who knows the pain of losing his job on a family and never forgets where he came from and the real impact his economic and trade policies have on real people,” said White House Chief of Staff Ron. clan
Rhode Island contains the grand Newport mansions that once belonged to America’s wealthiest families and factories that attracted Italian immigrants like Raimondo’s grandparents. This mix of size and breadth of social class lends its politics an unusual immediacy.
Joseph Raimondo lost his job as a chemist at the Bulova factory when his youngest child was in the sixth grade. Fans of her daughter, and even some opponents, say the formative event made her competitive and as meticulously detail-oriented as a watchmaker.
He has been known to email staff about policy ideas until midnight and until 6am. Tech CEOs say they work like them: direct, focused, full of questions.
When Raimondo left to go to college in 1989, Rhode Island was still a manufacturing state. At the time, more than 20% of jobs in the state were in manufacturing; Now only 8%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Raimondo’s story It is a microcosm of the American economy that emerged from World War II with its productive power intact. But low wages overseas have alienated factory jobs, and the economy has been restructured for college graduates and the digital age.
As Raimondo did, the brightest or luckiest children of ex-steel workers and auto workers earned degrees from top universities.
Like many of his generation who had witnessed America’s industrial decline through his family experiences, Raimondo sought to be a part of the meritocracy. He served as a clerk for a federal judge and became a venture capitalist while marrying a similarly noble husband, Andy Moffit. Federal ethics disclosures pin his fortune at up to $10 million.
Raimondo has long been interested in the nuances of what drives people and systems. Bob Walsh, a former banker and general manager of Rhode Island’s leading teachers’ union, remembers being questioned by Raimondo at lunch.
“Why are you doing what you’re doing?” Raimondo asked him. “You can make a lot more money doing something else.”
Before winning his first term as governor in 2014, Raimondo took controversial steps as state treasurer to bolster Rhode Island’s struggling public pension fund. This meant forcing the teachers’ union to raise the retirement age and suspend living expenses. Many unions were primarily opposed to him. However, Walsh personally supported him in the general election and provided institutional support for his 2018 re-election.
In overwhelmingly Democratic Rhode Island, Raimondo learned to rule by forming coalitions within a diverse group. State Senator Sam Bell, one of Raimondo’s leading Democratic opponents, said he was “excellent and effective” – but in ways he believed were consuming Medicaid and other services for the poor.
Now, Raimondo’s ability to parse numbers to explain policy comes into play on multiple fronts as Biden pushes the infrastructure deal, tackles congested supply lines, and promotes the $52 billion CHIPS Act to boost computer chip production and research.
“It’s powerful at presenting data,” Walsh said. “The ability to make a strong presentation and understand the diversity of issues can be an advantage once again.”
For much of his life, efficiency was the key to economic growth—payrolls were kept in check and inventories were kept just in time so that excess supply did not reduce profits.
Then, the pandemic interrupted chip production as demand surged as people working from home became more dependent on their electronic devices. The fragile supply chain has also been hit by extreme weather and other factors.
“If ships stop working, all these efficient supply chains fall apart very, very quickly,” said Revathi Advaithi, who meets Raimondo frequently as CEO of Flex, one of the largest electronics manufacturer services companies in the world. “The pandemic is just one part of it. Our view is that this has been going on for a long time.”
The United States now needs a more diverse network of producers to avoid shutdowns and minimize damage from disasters. Factories need failsafes that make it easy to restart after shutdown. This also means it needs more high-tech manufacturing jobs.
Raimondo predicts that the computer chip shortage will continue into next year and will do damage. The White House said in a report released in September that the famine could lower economic growth by a full percentage point this year.
“We’ve probably all underestimated how devastating COVID is to our supply chains,” Raimondo said. “We suddenly shut down our economy. Automakers stopped ordering semiconductors.”
The United States once accounted for 40% of worldwide chip production; now it’s 12%. The cost of making a chip in the United States is 30% higher than in Taiwan and South Korea. A chip maker must spend tens of millions of dollars on a prototype before they see any revenue, which is a hurdle for startups.
Raimondo makes choices based on personal circumstances for a technocrat’s pitfalls. Biden knew about his father when he interviewed him for Commerce. Moving to Washington seemed like a natural fit, but Raimondo was worried about uprooting his young children, Cecilia and Thompson.
Big brother’s advice: Take the job. for their father.
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