关键化学品：可能颠覆工业经济的韧性盲点

We believe U.S. and allied chemical supply chains are critically important, increasingly vulnerable, and urgently need greater focus and attention. Chemicals are the hidden foundation of the industrial economy and essential to downstream strategic sectors including semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, defense, agriculture, and energy; the absence of the right molecule is an absolute constraint, from artillery shells that cannot be filled without propellant, to antibiotics and blood thinners without key starting materials, to crops unfertilized without ammonia, to AI semiconductors that cannot be fabricated without roughly 500 process chemicals per chip. The U.S. is already losing the sector: China holds roughly 35% of global chemical gross output versus 13.5% for the U.S. (28% vs 23% on a value-added basis), and the more consequential loss is at the innovation frontier, where China now drives 41% of the expansion of substance discovery against just 11% for the U.S. Leverage has already bee