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The Defense Production Act (DPA) was created at the outset of the Korean War to

ensure the availability of the nation’s industrial resources to meet the national security

needs of the United States by granting the President powers to ensure the supply and timely delivery of products,materials, and services to military and civilian agencies.
The DPA codifies a robust legal authority given the President to force industry to give

priority to national security production and is the statutory underpinning of governmental review of foreign investment in U.S. companies.
DPA authorities are not permanent. Rather, they are time-limited, undergoing

periodic amendment and reauthorization. Of the seven titles contained within the

Original Act, four have been repealed. In 2008, it was reauthorized the

remaining titles of the DPA through September 2009.
opportunity to examine whether DPA authority would remain useful as both U.S.’s economic
policies and the nation’s defense industrial base adapt to changing strategic, defense, security, and
industrial realities.
The DPA was originally crafted as a comprehensive economic and industrial policy approach to
an immediate wartime emergency. Over time, the statute’s scope has narrowed considerably while the nature of the threat to national security, the organization of the military services, and the supporting industrial base have fundamentally transformed.
Assessing the future efficacy of the DPA in its current or some amended form would be a difficult
and complex undertaking. Some could take a position that the domestic industrial base the Act
supports no longer exists, having become part of a globalized system of trade and international
relationships, particularly with political allies aligned with the United States. Others might argue
that international trade and technology partners, no matter how closely allied with the United
States, might prove unreliable in crises, and that the DPA represents the best means to ensure that
domestic resources are available when needed most.