The global chip war is heating up, and Chinese aggression is to blame.
The Chinese Communist Party recently demanded that U.S. semiconductor firms provide sensitive information about their China sales, part of Beijing’s exploitation of American innovation. Chinese megacities, such as Shanghai, are racing to boost the country’s chip self-sufficiency, spending massive sums on semiconductor research and development.
U.S. citizens and policymakers can expect decades of the same antagonism. The CCP is seeking to dominate the world by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the communist regime’s founding in Beijing. Winning the artificial intelligence race is a critical component, and China will stop at nothing to acquire artificial general intelligence. For years, Beijing and other provinces have institutionalized AGI in local initiatives, while the State Council’s “AI+ Action” plan recently codified AGI-linked targets into national modernization benchmarks. Long story short, AGI is central to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s AI strategy.
CHINA’s THREAT TO TAIWAN ISN’T DEPENDENT ON XI JINPING
The pressure is on Washington, D.C. Americans cannot allow China to dominate the world with a form of AI on par with human capability. We cannot afford to have the CCP steal our AI models, threaten our companies, and weaponize them against us.
For the Trump administration, one clear solution to the China problem is a wide-ranging export control platform that restricts Beijing’s access to advanced AI technology. As Xi pursues his export restrictions to maintain China’s rare earth dominance, the White House must keep up the pressure with export controls on core technological advantages.
We are (still) in a position of strength. Our top advantage is U.S. access to the world’s most advanced AI hardware. This includes global chip leader Nvidia, more than half of the world’s hyperscale cloud capacity, and nearly 75% of the world’s AI supercomputing resources. President Donald Trump rightly paused exports of Nvidia’s H20 AI chip to China in April, but has since reversed course. He needs to reverse course again, sending a message that China and other foreign adversaries are not entitled to our resources.
There will be pushback. Nvidia has been irresponsible in pursuing its own corporate interests ahead of America’s national security interests. Nvidia President and CEO Jensen Huang recently called China hawks “shameful,” but the real shame lies in putting profit above patriotic duty.
As a 32-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, where I commanded a B-1 bomber squadron and a nuclear mission wing, I know that most Americans expect more from CEOs who made their billions of dollars here. I survived the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon and subsequently ran for the Senate to champion a robust, principled national defense — one based on peace through strength. Today, peace through strength means keeping American AI out of adversarial hands, even if business groups pressure the Trump administration into trade with China.
Export controls work. According to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Huawei will produce only about 200,000 AI chips in 2025. By contrast, in 2024, China legally imported roughly a million chips that Nvidia downgraded specifically for the Chinese market, without taking into account illegal imports.
To crack down on widely reported chip smuggling into China, Congress has a role to play in enacting chip location verification and other effective safeguards. One example is Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-AR) Chip Security Act, which would allow for the tracking of AI chips so they don’t end up in the hands of adversarial governments. To quote Cotton, our toolbox of “chip security mechanisms” is a powerful deterrent.
THESE TWO THINGS WILL DETERMINE WHO WINS THE US-CHINA TRADE WAR
Congressional Republicans will hear plenty of chatter from Nvidia and the business lobby, not to mention Big Tech mouthpieces that pursue AI research and development with no checks or balances. Judging by Silicon Valley’s $200 million investment in pro-AI super PACs, technologists will seek to remove any and all obstacles in the way of advanced AI, targeting the elected officials who dare to speak out against Big Tech. Their lust for profit and power is obvious, but it does nothing to keep the United States safe and secure in a world where the China-Russia alliance seeks to undermine American interests at every turn.
In the chip war, the battle lines are drawn: You either care about U.S. national security or you don’t. If we care about peace through strength, Chinese AI dominance is a nonstarter. We have no choice but to win.
Robert L. Maness, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, is the founder and owner of Iron Liberty Group.
