Opinion: Put America First in the Defense Bill and Keep America's AI Out of Beijing's Hands

Some of the biggest names in American tech are lobbying Congress to strip new limits on AI chip sales to Communist China out of the defense bill. That bill has been pushed past the election. The House passed its version on July 22 by a vote of 216-212, but a July 14 Senate vote to begin debate fell short. The Senate then adjourned on September 30 until the week of November 9 with the bill still unfinished. "I think the NDAA will come together after the election," Sen. Mike Rounds told The Hill.

America's AI chip policy will be settled in the lame duck. Senate negotiators have agreed to fold three chip-security bills into a manager's amendment to their version. The AI Overwatch Act would restrict sales of U.S. AI chips to China. The Chip Security Act would require location verification for export-controlled advanced chips, writing into law an idea President Trump's AI Action Plan directed his administration to explore. The Match Act aims to line up U.S. and allied controls on chipmaking equipment.

Louisiana has a real say in what survives. Speaker Mike Johnson decides what reaches the House floor, and Majority Leader Steve Scalise runs the schedule. Two Louisianans will be in the room when the final deal is cut.

The President has already made the case. His AI Action Plan puts it plainly: "Denying our foreign adversaries access to this resource, then, is a matter of both geostrategic competition and national security." The same plan commits to "preventing our adversaries from free-riding on our innovation and investment." That is America First applied to the most important technology of the century, and Congress can lock it in with a statute.

Beijing does not play by market rules. Under its military-civil fusion strategy, the Chinese Communist Party works to erase the line between its commercial sector and its military, with the stated goal of building a "world class military" by 2049. China's National Intelligence Law requires that "all organizations and citizens shall support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts." A cutting-edge American chip sold to a Chinese company is a chip the People's Liberation Army can claim.

Conservatives believe in free markets, which is why this trade fails the test. A free market needs independent buyers and sellers. On the Chinese side of this deal, the Party directs the capital and claims the results. Selling our best technology into that system means helping our top adversary build its military, whatever the lobbyists call it.

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has argued that the restrictions backfired, saying they gave Chinese companies "the spirit, the energy and the government support to accelerate their development." His verdict, as reported by Reuters: "All in all, the export control was a failure." Five technology trade groups led by the Information Technology Industry Council wrote to the Armed Services leaders on September 3 asking them to drop all three chip bills. They warned that the AI Overwatch Act would freeze chip export controls "in statute for at least eighteen months–an eternity in the fast-moving AI sector."

Eighteen months of certainty is a small price for national security. The "government support" Huang describes is Beijing's state machinery at work, the same system that turns Chinese commercial gains into military ones. The controls are also protecting a real lead. ASML, the Dutch company that builds the machines needed to make the most advanced chips, cannot sell its top lithography tools to China, and its chief executive, Christophe Fouquet, put the effect bluntly: "By banning the export of EUV, China will lag 10 to 15 years behind the West." The trade groups' own letter says their members "depend on a stable, predictable export control regime that keeps the most advanced American technology out of the hands of our adversaries." Congress can give them that. A law is about as stable and predictable as policy gets.

America already learned what happens when industry chases the cheapest deal abroad. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, America's share of global chipmaking capacity fell from 37 percent in 1990 to 10 percent by 2022. The country is still working to bring that manufacturing home. Feeding China's AI buildout with our best chips would repeat the mistake at the top of the industry, where the best-paying jobs and the military edge both sit.

These limits belong in statute. Export rules written by a federal agency can be loosened as quickly as they were tightened. The Senate's own bill takes the threat seriously enough to require an annual assessment of how certain AI chips contribute to the military capabilities of the People's Republic of China. If Congress wants to measure the danger every year, it should pass the restrictions alongside the study.

When negotiators merge the two bills after the election, the chip provisions will be a handful of items among hundreds, facing a well-funded industry push to strip them out. Items without a champion in leadership tend to get dropped. Speaker Johnson and Leader Scalise can be those champions and give the President's own priority the force of law. They should insist that strong, permanent export controls on advanced AI chips bound for China stay in the defense bill that reaches President Trump's desk.

Illustration: LPR. Photos: The White House; Office of the Speaker; Noclip/Wikimedia Commons (all public domain).