Technology is vital to a large and growing part of daily life, communications, the economy, and national defense. The US is and must remain the world’s preeminent technology leader. We must act to bring back to the US much of the technology manufacturing that has been offshored.
Semiconductors, software, wireless and wireline communications, video communications, renewable energy, and other modern technologies are essential to US security and the health of our economy. The US must support growth and innovation in our world-leading technology businesses. We must ensure continued US leadership. Our technology industry is under attack from foreign nations who engage in IP theft and cyberespionage on a daily basis. The US government must defend those companies. Foreign technology companies, especially from China, use massive government subsidies, protectionist policies, and other illegal means of furthering their own national champions, at great cost to American companies. We must counter those threats with industrial policies that ensure US research and development leads the world. We must rebuild our technology manufacturing capability. Many modern technology products are not manufactured in the US and we must address this situation with support for re-shoring technology production.
Witnesses at a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Oct. 29 titled “The Future of Biotech” discussed ways to facilitate reshoring and making it attractive to expand in the U.S. and conduct R&D here instead of in China.
The report, titled “America’s Chip-for-Chip Tariff Policy: The Urgent Fight to Reclaim Industrial Independence Before It’s Too Late,” finds that the United States now produces only 10 percent of the world’s chips—and almost none of the most advanced ones—while China has captured the majority of global capacity for legacy chips, the mature semiconductors essential to cars, medical devices, and industrial equipment.
On the surface, America looks like an unrivaled success story. Yet beneath the headline numbers lies an economy increasingly dependent on foreign production, hollowed out in critical industries, and unable to provide secure, high-wage work for many of its citizens.
CPA’s chief economist emeritus, Jeff Ferry, has gone back to school in his semi-retirement years. This time, though, it was a speaking gig at the University of Florida’s new Semiconductor Institute in Gainesville.
CPA Economist Andrew Rechenberg gave his testimony and answered questions in a four- panelist hearing. It was arguably the most agreeable hearing in years. A bipartisan consensus on America’s generic drug supply chain is nearly fully formed now.
Titled “The New Biotech Cold War: The U.S. Medicine Can’t Afford to Fall Behind China,” the report shows how U.S. biotech – long a pillar of national strength – no longer has a guaranteed edge globally.
