Export Controls a Complement to Technology Industrial Policy, Senator Says

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., are promoting a bill they say should guide government investments in advanced manufacturing or industrial research, and should be a companion to the Endless Frontier Act. The National Strategy to Ensure American Leadership (SEAL) Act would ask the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine to identify which technologies will be the critical ones in the next five to 10 years, where if the U.S. is not a strong player, it could hurt the economy.

Although the bill -- and the Endless Frontier bill -- has more to do with spending to support industrial policy than with trade, Van Hollen addressed the export restrictions the U.S. has imposed to hinder Huawei, which is a 5G infrastructure leader. The U.S. does not make 5G backbone equipment.

Van Hollen said, “Everything we can to prevent the existing cutting edge technologies being used by Chinese military or others” should be done, and said that in the case of both ZTE and Huawei, the U.S. is also justified in export restraints because those companies stole U.S. companies' designs years ago. “That’s an important complement to these efforts,” he said during a press call April 19.

Blunt agreed, adding, “Why weren't we ahead of Huawei, competing at the same time that they were?” And, on technologies that will be as important ten years from now as 5G is now, he said, “How do we prevent from this happening again?”

Blunt did not endorse the Endless Frontier bill, but said he is considering doing so if there are some additions or refinements to it. He also said that the $50 billion the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act, or CHIPS Act, would authorize for semiconductor research or manufacturing is reasonable.