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Executive Order 13806 🏛️✅ Zone 1: Maximum Authority Constitutional Fidelity (+0.52) 📜 Art. II §2: Commander-in-Chief Supervisory Authority

Executive Order 13806—Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States

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Friday, July 21, 2017
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5 min read (1,037 words)
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82 Fed. Reg. 34597

Executive Brief • At a Glance

⏱️ 5 min read (1,037 words) • ● In Effect
🎯 Primary Mandate

Within 270 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Secretaries of Commerce, Labor, Energy, and Homeland Security, and in consultation with the Secretaries of the Interior and Health and Human Services, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Director of National Intelligence, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, the Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, and the heads of such other agencies as the Secretary of Defense deems appropriate, shall provide to the President an unclassified report, with a classified annex as needed, that builds on current assessment and evaluation activities…

⚖️ Constitutional Footing
🏛️✅ Zone 1: Maximum Authority
Express or Implied Congressional Authorization
📜 Art. II §2: Commander-in-Chief Supervisory Authority
🏛️ Scope & Affected Sectors
Armed Forces & Military Establishments Merchants, Importers & Commercial Enterprises Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants Foreign Nations & International Entities

Plain-English Translation & Framers' Constitutional Analysis

Early Statesman synthesis distilling legal jargon into practical meaning, statutory anchors, and structural constitutional impacts.

Signed by President Donald J. Trump (1st Term) on July 21, 2017, this order concerns Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States. A healthy manufacturing and defense industrial base and resilient supply chains are essential to the economic strength and national security of the United States. The ability of the United States to maintain readiness, and to surge in response to an emergency, directly relates to the capacity, capabilities, and resiliency of our manufacturing and defense industrial base and supply chains.

Constitutional Assessment: Scrutinized through Article II, Section 2, this action exercises the President's constitutional role as Commander in Chief. Early Framers recognized broad executive discretion in commanding military forces during conflict, provided it remains bounded by congressional declarations and respects civilian domestic courts.

Key Directives & Operative Actions

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Within 270 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Secretaries of Commerce, Labor, Energy, and Homeland Security, and in consultation with the Secretaries of the Interior and Health and Human Services, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Director of National Intelligence, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, the Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, and the heads of such other agencies as the Secretary of Defense deems appropriate, shall provide to the President an unclassified report, with a classified annex as needed, that builds on current assessment and evaluation activities…

Constitutional & Societal Entities Impacted

🏛️ Armed Forces & Military Establishments 🏛️ Merchants, Importers & Commercial Enterprises 🏛️ Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants 🏛️ Foreign Nations & International Entities
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The Framers' Constitutional Council

1787 Prism

Evaluating this order against the constitutional debates of 1787 and the limits of Article II executive power.

🏛️✅ Zone 1 (Maximum Authority)
§

"When the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate."

— Justice Robert H. Jackson, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) Express or Implied Congressional Authorization
JM

James Madison

Separation of Powers & Legislative Primacy

"The constitutional magistracy was designed not to invent policy, but to be the faithful instrument of the laws passed by the people's representatives." — Speech in the First Congress (1789)

Madison would approve the structural posture of this order. The President acts strictly in subordination to statutory authority granted under Article II, Section 3 ("take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"). The checks and balances hold firm because the policy origin remains with the legislature.

Madisonian Stance: Concurring (Statutory)
AH

Alexander Hamilton

The Energetic Executive & Unified Command

"The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength; and the power of directing and employing the common strength must be under the direction of the single hand of the Executive." — Federalist No. 74 (1788)

Hamilton would forcefully champion executive discretion here. For foreign entanglements, commerce defense, and national security, deliberative assemblies are too slow and faction-ridden. A unified, energetic Executive exercising swift command is precisely what the Philadelphia Convention intended for national preservation.

Hamiltonian Stance: Strong Prerogative Support
GM

George Mason

Bill of Rights, Due Process & 10th Amendment

"The president will be surrounded by flatterers and sycophants... and the great powers of the executive will gradually absorb the liberties of the people." — Cato IV (Anti-Federalist, 1787)

The Anti-Federalist prism advises continuous democratic vigilance. Even routine administrative directives aggregate centralized federal power away from town halls and state assemblies toward a distant executive apparatus.

Anti-Federalist Stance: Eternal Vigilance Required
📐

Five Measurable "Constitutional Friction" Dimensions

An objective audit measuring potential separation-of-powers tension against the United States Constitution and established Supreme Court doctrine.

⚖️ Discretionary Twilight Zone
36 / 100 friction index
Dimension 1 • Art. I, §1 & §8

Legislative Encroachment & Purse

Moderate Friction

Administers commerce or fiscal programs requiring ongoing statutory delegation and legislative oversight.

Benchmark: Power of the purse, taxes/tariffs, and rule of law reserved to Congress.
Dimension 2 • Art. II, §1 & §3

Executive Scope & Faithfulness

Moderate Friction

Directs internal executive branch machinery, agency workflows, and federal personnel.

Benchmark: Faithfully execute laws enacted by Congress vs. unilateral decree.
Dimension 3 • 10th Amendment

Federalism & State Sovereignty

Moderate Friction

Engages state and local partners in cooperative federalism programs.

Benchmark: Police powers and un-delegated responsibilities reserved to the States.
Dimension 4 • 5th & 14th Amendments

Due Process & Individual Rights

Low Friction

Focuses on internal governmental operations with no direct impairment of private rights or property.

Benchmark: Protection of private property, contracts, liberty, and procedural justice.
Dimension 5 • Separation of Powers

Youngstown Jacksonian Tier

Low Friction

The President operates strictly as the constitutional Chief Executive, carrying out policy established by Congress with strong statutory backing.

Benchmark: Express or Implied Congressional Authorization
⚖️ Audit Synthesis

This order operates within Justice Jackson’s Zone of Twilight, resting upon concurrent presidential authority or congressional silence.

Weighted composite: Art. I (25%), Art. II (25%), Federalism (15%), Due Process (15%), Youngstown (20%).
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How to read these dimensions: Executive power expands whenever an administration acts without explicit statutory authorization from Congress (Article I), touches upon police powers historically reserved to the states (Tenth Amendment), or limits private rights and property without judicial process. A low friction score indicates strict concordance with enacted law; a high friction score highlights orders testing the limits of presidential discretion.
Total Words
1,037
6,986 characters
Estimated Read Time
5 min
@ 200 words / min
Flesch-Kincaid
31.4
Post-Graduate Legal
Language Tone Score
+0.52
Constitutional Fidelity
How is this scored?
Text size:

Official Archival Text

View Source Document
📑Sections Outline (3 sections)

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1 . #sec-1

Policy . A healthy manufacturing and defense industrial base and resilient supply chains are essential to the economic strength and national security of the United States. The ability of the United States to maintain readiness, and to surge in response to an emergency, directly relates to the capacity, capabilities, and resiliency of our manufacturing and defense industrial base and supply chains. Modern supply chains, however, are often long and the ability of the United States to manufacture or obtain goods critical to national security could be hampered by an inability to obtain various essential components, which themselves may not be directly related to national security. Thus, the United States must maintain a manufacturing and defense industrial base and supply chains capable of manufacturing or supplying those items. The loss of more than 60,000 American factories, key companies, and almost 5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000 threatens to undermine the capacity and capabilities of United States manufacturers to meet national defense requirements and raises concerns about the health of the manufacturing and defense industrial base. The loss of additional companies, factories, or elements of supply chains could impair domestic capacity to create, maintain, protect, expand, or restore capabilities essential for national security. As the manufacturing capacity and defense industrial base of the United States have been weakened by the loss of factories and manufacturing jobs, so too have workforce skills important to national defense. This creates a need for strategic and swift action in creating education and workforce development programs and policies that support job growth in manufacturing and the defense industrial base. Strategic support for a vibrant domestic manufacturing sector, a vibrant defense industrial base, and resilient supply chains is therefore a significant national priority. A comprehensive evaluation of the defense industrial base and supply chains, with input from multiple executive departments and agencies (agencies), will provide a necessary assessment of our current strengths and weaknesses.

Sec. 2 . #sec-2

Assessment of the Manufacturing Capacity, Defense Industrial Base, and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States . Within 270 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Secretaries of Commerce, Labor, Energy, and Homeland Security, and in consultation with the Secretaries of the Interior and Health and Human Services, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Director of National Intelligence, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, the Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, and the heads of such other agencies as the Secretary of Defense deems appropriate, shall provide to the President an unclassified report, with a classified annex as needed, that builds on current assessment and evaluation activities, and: (a) identifies the military and civilian materiel, raw materials, and other goods that are essential to national security; (b) identifies the manufacturing capabilities essential to producing the goods identified pursuant to subsection (a) of this section, including emerging capabilities; (c) identifies the defense, intelligence, homeland, economic, natural, geopolitical, or other contingencies that may disrupt, strain, compromise, or eliminate the supply chains of goods identified pursuant to subsection (a) of this section (including as a result of the elimination of, or failure to develop domestically, the capabilities identified pursuant to subsection (b) of this section) and that are sufficiently likely to arise so as to require reasonable preparation for their occurrence; (d) assesses the resiliency and capacity of the manufacturing and defense industrial base and supply chains of the United States to support national security needs upon the occurrence of the contingencies identified pursuant to subsection (c) of this section, including an assessment of: (i) the manufacturing capacity of the United States and the physical plant capacity of the defense industrial base, including their ability to modernize to meet future needs; (ii) gaps in national-security-related domestic manufacturing capabilities, including non-existent, extinct, threatened, and single-point-of-failure capabilities; (iii) supply chains with single points of failure or limited resiliency, especially at suppliers third-tier and lower; (iv) energy consumption and opportunities to increase resiliency through better energy management; (v) current domestic education and manufacturing workforce skills; (vi) exclusive or dominant supply of the goods (or components thereof) identified pursuant to subsection (a) of this section by or through nations that are or are likely to become unfriendly or unstable; and (vii) the availability of substitutes for or alternative sources for the goods identified pursuant to subsection (a) of this section; (e) identifies the causes of any aspect of the defense industrial base or national-security-related supply chains assessed as deficient pursuant to subsection (d) of this section; and (f) recommends such legislative, regulatory, and policy changes and other actions by the President or the heads of agencies as they deem appropriate based upon a reasoned assessment that the benefits outweigh the costs (broadly defined to include any economic, strategic, and national security benefits or costs) over the short, medium, and long run to: (i) avoid, or prepare for, any contingencies identified pursuant to subsection (c) of this section; (ii) ameliorate any aspect of the defense industrial base or national-security-related supply chains assessed as deficient pursuant to subsection (d) of this section; and (iii) strengthen the United States manufacturing capacity and defense industrial base and increase the resiliency of supply chains critical to national security.

Sec. 3 . #sec-3

General Provisions . (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect: (i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or (ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals. (b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations. (c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person. DONALD J. TRUMP

THE WHITE HOUSE, #signature

July 21, 2017.

🔗

Referenced By Later Executive Orders (1)

Subsequent presidents who cited, amended, continued, or revoked this directive in later orders.

Joseph R. Biden, Jr. • 2021-02-24
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Scholarly & Legal Citations

Exec. Order No. 13,806, 82 Fed. Reg. 34,597 (July 21, 2017).