House Continues to Seek Outbound Investment Deal

After months of negotiations, House lawmakers remain hopeful they can reach a compromise on a bill to restrict outbound investment in China, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., said Oct. 25.

House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., has said outbound investment legislation “is a priority and he wants to get something done here, and I’m working towards that goal,” McHenry told reporters. “I’m working with him and his team to achieve some reasonable outcome on policy.”

Besides McHenry and Johnson, lawmakers working to forge an agreement include House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas; House Select Committee on China Chairman Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich.; and Reps. Andy Barr, R-Ky., and French Hill, R-Ark., who are members of both Financial Services and Foreign Affairs, McHenry said.

Johnson expressed interest in outbound investment legislation in July (see 2407080046), and he said in early October that he wants to reach a "bipartisan solution" by year’s end (see 2410070008). The House has been divided all year between some lawmakers, such as McHenry and Barr, who favor imposing restrictions on individual entities, and others, such as McCaul, who would rather target whole technology sectors (see 2401180067).

McHenry remains opposed to a proposal by Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Bob Casey, D-Pa., that would require U.S. companies to notify the Treasury Department before making certain investments in several “countries of concern,” including China (see 2409230016). “We have a better approach,” McHenry said.

The Cornyn-Casey proposal was included in the Senate version of the FY 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) but didn't make it into the final NDAA that Congress passed in December (see 2312070054). The proposal will be considered again during House-Senate negotiations on the FY 2025 NDAA (see 2409230016).