Major shaping legislation on China, from the CHIPS Act to sanctions, often originates in Congress. Congressional action creates durable policy that outlasts fleeting presidential administrations, providing guardrails and tools for the executive branch.
The U.S. government approaches economic foreign policy in a piecemeal fashion, with different factions advocating for trade, investment controls, or supply chain resilience separately. This lack of an integrated national economic security strategy leads to internal competition for resources and inconsistent policy application.
While the race for quantum computing hardware is underway, a major blind spot is the software. Quantum software doesn't exist yet, and current software giants are not prepared. The U.S. needs a strategic public-private effort to build this ecosystem from scratch to capitalize on future hardware breakthroughs.
A major obstacle to securing U.S. supply chains is a deliberate lack of data. The government has avoided mandating data collection on critical dependencies, like pharmaceutical ingredients from China, out of deference to industry. This prevents policymakers from even understanding the extent of their vulnerabilities.
Unlike Treasury's sanctions unit, which was deeply integrated into the intelligence community post-9/11, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is not. This means the IC is reactive, providing information on request rather than proactively shaping export control policy with intelligence.
Beyond just pharma, China is engaging in a 'salami slicing' strategy to take over the foundational infrastructure of the U.S. biotech economy. This slow, incremental acquisition of manufacturing and research capabilities mirrors its successful long-term strategy for dominating sectors like rare earths.
The U.S.-China Commission was established by a skeptical Congress during China's WTO accession not only to monitor China, but also to oversee the U.S. executive branch's handling of the relationship. It focuses on long-term strategic issues rather than immediate crises.
The U.S.-China Commission proposes consolidating disparate economic tools like export controls into a single entity. This would prevent critical decisions from languishing at mid-levels within conflicted departments and create a single forcing function for action, reducing the need for constant NSC intervention.
China operates as a two-speed economy. While the consumer side is slowing, Xi Jinping is pouring resources into a state-directed 'national security economy' focused on advanced tech and military modernization. U.S. policy should be narrowly tailored to disrupt this specific sector, not the broader economy.
Key departments like Commerce have conflicting mandates. The Commerce Secretary's primary goal is to promote U.S. business abroad, which structurally disincentivizes them from implementing tough export controls that could harm those same businesses, thus undermining national security objectives.