Governments must step up cooperation to thwart dangerous shipments that terrorists could use to paralyse global trade, US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Thursday.
Napolitano used a speech in Brussels to enlist allies in an effort to protect the global supply chain, the crucial system that takes products made in countries like China through ships and trucks to European and US stores.
"That system is a powerful engine of commerce, of jobs, of prosperity. Yet a range of increasingly unpredictable and potentially catastrophic threats, from terrorist acts to natural disasters, present substantial danger to the entire system," she said at a policy forum.
"Regardless of where a potential event might occur, the ripple effect of a significant disruption of this global system could potentially impact not just the United States but the entire international community," Napolitano said.
The US homeland security chief, who held two days of meetings with European Union officials on a trip that also took her to Afghanistan, Ireland, Israel and Qatar, said governments needed to make progress in three areas:
-- Working more closely to track the movements of material that can be used to make bombs, including chemicals, and preventing terrorists from acquiring them.
-- Protecting critical air, land and sea transportation hubs.
-- Ensuring that the global supply chain can rebound quickly from an attack in order to prevent trade from grinding to a halt.
A consequence of an attack on the supply chain, she warned, "could be that people across the world would find empty store shelves for food, serious shortages in needed medical supplies or significant increases in the cost of fuel."
The US Homeland Security Department will work with the Departments of State and Defence to provide training and technical assistance to partner countries.
"In all we will have hundreds of aviation and customs officers stationed around the world working with host countries to secure the international supply chain," she said.
The threat to the supply chain was highlighted in October when booby-trapped parcels were discovered in cargo planes bound for the United States.
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