Modernizing Export Controls

The United States, as we all know, is the world's largest exporter of goods and services, and our trade relationships as well as our leadership in science, engineering and manufacturing support between them tens of millions of good-paying American jobs. Alarmingly, our competitive edge is increasingly under attack by policies from China and Russia and from others that seek to obtain advanced technologies and intellectual property by hook or by crook. As some may recall, in 2011 this committee held a hearing on China's "indigenous innovation" policy and at that time I noted the Chinese Government has been turning up the pressure on U.S. and other foreign business to share sensitive technology with Chinese state-owned enterprises as the cost of selling in the Chinese market. This is especially true today. Making matters worse, our outdated regulatory safeguards have potential gaps. Those gaps could permit transfers to potential adversaries of the "know-how" essential to sensitive emerging technologies like artificial intelligence as well as robotics. In this global economy, turning inward is not the solution to these challenges. But we also cannot allow others to cheat U.S. employers or, worse, use our sensitive technology to undermine our own national security.