Orders, not grants.

The problem

Since 2020, Washington has put more than $800 million into domestic nitrile glove capacity through Defense Production Act Title III awards. Plants got built. Demand did not follow. The United States still makes roughly one percent of the 120 billion nitrile gloves it uses each year.

A grant pays for steel and equipment. It does not pay for the next ten years of production, and no lender will finance a production line against a purchase that may never come. When the emergency faded, buyers went back to the lowest landed price, and the new capacity was left without customers.

What the numbers say

• Domestic gloves cost roughly twice the imported price. Asian producers land gloves at about $13 to $15 per thousand and are still adding capacity.
• A plant without offtake is a stranded asset, whatever it cost to build.

What would work

• Multi-year offtake. Federal buyers commit to defined volumes over five to ten years, with price floors, so a line can be financed.
• Buy what you fund. Any future capacity award comes paired with a purchase commitment from the agencies that need the product.
• Rotate, don't warehouse. Inventory bought from domestic makers moves through commercial and federal channels before it expires (see Rotate the stockpile).

The ask

Stop measuring success by dollars awarded. Measure it by units ordered from American lines, year after year.

Dan Izhaky · October 2026 · All briefs · Next: Finish the Section 232 investigation.