Technology Restrictions Have Become a Central Instrument of Economic Statecraft
The United States is intensifying its technology confrontation with China, but the situation has become harder to read. What was once a clear bipartisan consensus around restricting China’s access to advanced semiconductors has fractured, replaced by a triangular standoff between Congress, the White House, and the chip industry that is reshaping US strategy in real time.
For years, the core logic was containment: progressively tightening export controls on high-end chips and the equipment used to fabricate them, while simultaneously investing in domestic capacity through the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. That law channeled tens of billions of dollars into manufacturing incentives and research initiatives, from TSMC’s Arizona fab to Samsung’s Texas expansion, Intel’s Ohio investment, and new capacity from GlobalFoundries and Micron. The ambition was not merely defensive. It reflected a recognition that technological leadership, once ceded, is extraordinarily difficult to reclaim, and that the architecture of global chip production had become a strategic vulnerability as much as an economic asset.
Related Knowledge Center: Digital privacy and data security
If you’re online, you’re generating a constant stream of information about yourself — sometimes voluntarily, sometimes unwittingly — that is assembled and used to craft your online experience. And generate wealth for data brokers. Meanwhile, designers and managers of the digital infrastructure on which the world depends are engaged in a never-ending effort to thwart attempts, by both criminal enterprises and state actors, to exploit vulnerabilities in those systems.
Signalgate | State surveillance