ATR Op-Ed in The Hill: Biden’s Export Controls on China Have Backfired

In a new opinion piece for The Hill, ATR’s Director of Innovation Policy James Erwin argues that President Biden’s aggressive export controls on advanced semiconductors to China have failed — and in many ways have made the situation worse.

Two years after the controls were expanded, Erwin writes that instead of crippling China’s technological rise, the policy has accelerated Huawei’s resurgence, strengthened its domestic market dominance, and enabled the company to expand its AI and cloud footprint across the Global South.

While the restrictions blocked the newest U.S. chips, China responded by investing over $150 billion in subsidies, pivoting to older but still capable technology, and doubling down on self-sufficiency. Huawei is now producing “near-frontier” chips at scale and powering AI models on its global cloud platform in nine major countries.

“Export controls didn’t stop China’s progress — they subsidized it,” Erwin writes.

Rather than trying to slow China by adopting protectionist tactics, Erwin says the United States should focus on out-innovating its rivals. America wins when it unleashes its own companies, maintains technological superiority, and competes in global markets instead of ceding them. Reports that China’s economy is shrinking under its industrial policy is a fairly clear sign that the United States should avoid emulation.

The piece comes as the Trump Administration has begun rolling back some of the most restrictive Biden-era controls in favor of a more pro-innovation approach.

Read the full op-ed here.