A little bit at a time is how. History shows that the U.S. government cannot in one fell swoop outlaw all direct and indirect financial aid and comfort to the Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Liberation Army, and comparable organizations of various enemy countries. It must be done in stages.
The latest consists of a proposed Treasury rule “to crack down on high-tech investments in China, other adversaries” (Associated Press, October 23, 2026).
The U.S. Treasury Department proposed a rule Thursday to crack down on American high-tech investments such as supercomputing and artificial intelligence in China, Russia, North Korea and other “countries of concern.”
The U.S. government has been working for years to deny China and other adversaries investments that could help them boost their military power.
That program began in 2023 when then-President Joe Biden signed an executive order putting restrictions on outbound U.S. investments in sectors such as semiconductors, quantum computing and artificial intelligence going into China. Treasury later established the Outbound Investment Security Program.
In December 2025, Congress passed a law that codified and expanded the program to target more technologies and more foreign countries, including Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Russia.
The inclusion of Russia in the proposed rule has come days after President Donald Trump waived sanctions on Russia following a diesel deal with President Vladimir Putin.
The rule announced Thursday would expand the restrictions to cover investments in hypersonic systems capable of traveling at five times the speed of sound, supercomputing, biotechnology and artificial intelligence.
This stage has other stages. Justice Department lawyer Jason Chipman says the new rule “will require more substantial compliance programs to manage risk.” “Manage” risk? Isn’t the goal of the new rule to eliminate the risk of any U.S. investments in enemy hypersonics, supercomputing, biotech, and AI by prohibiting such investment?
Former U.S. trade official Ryan Majerus: “It’s just the first step in a fairly long process to get to changes which presumably will be more enforcement-minded….”
Biotechnology
The biotech component of the latest move toward further implementing the idea of not funding and abetting enemy governments has been applauded by Congressman John Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. He says that the United States cannot afford to let U.S. companies “boost China’s biotech industry while labs and research facilities across our nation with higher ethical standards than China go empty.” Five months ago, Moolenaar was urging Treasury Secretary Bessent “to cover biotechnology as a prohibited technology as soon as possible.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning says no, Treasury’s new rule represents interference in markets that is being rationalized by “overstretching the concept of national security.” For the sake of purity of unhampered markets, foreign governments hostile to the United States ought not be discriminated against, is the line Ming slings.
Also see:
Select Committee on the CCP: “Moolenaar Calls to Restrict American Investment in China’s Biotechnology Companies” (May 21, 2026)
