There’s been a lot of talk about “friendshoring” since Treasury secretary Janet Yellen first used the word in 2022. The concept is one of the key ways in which the Biden administration’s approach to trade and supply chain resiliency differs from that of Donald Trump. But it’s been difficult to get beyond talk, in part because the US hasn’t had a clear, granular picture of its own capacity in key industrial sectors — let alone that of its friends.

That’s starting to change. Last year, the commerce department launched a Supply Chain Center, to work with private sector partners on supply chain mapping. It has now begun quietly trialing a supply chain exposure tool that crunches trade and customs data from the US and many of its allies to create a detailed picture of where risks and opportunities lie.

The idea is to figure out how healthy — or not — these countries really are when it comes to supply chains in a variety of sectors, such as semiconductors, critical minerals, consumer electronics and so on. How quickly could critical inputs be replaced from allies in case of war, a pandemic or a natural disaster? How much do they depend on others from a single nation, such as China or Russia?