Select Committee Democrats Question Witnesses During Hearing on Import Controls: Tools to Counter the CCP's Industrial Policy and Supply Chain Threats

WASHINGTON – Today, Democratic Members of the Select Committee, including Representatives André Carson (IN-07), Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL-08), Jill Tokuda (HI-02), Tom Suozzi (NY-03), Haley Stevens (MI-11), and Shontel Brown (OH-11), questioned witnesses during a hearing examining policy tools used to regulate imports from the People’s Republic of China.

Rep. Carson underscored how strategic use of policy tools can help strengthen U.S. supply chains, support domestic defense production, and reduce reliance on China for critical inputs such as specialty alloys, rare earth magnets, and titanium.”

In response, Mr. Peter Harrell, Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University’s Institute of International Economic Law and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations acknowledged that the United States cannot eliminate these dependencies overnight and should pursue an aggressive but realistic transition to alternative sources to reduce vulnerability without inadvertently disrupting domestic manufacturing.

“I think there have been multiple, important steps that have been taken by the Department of Defense by other U.S. government agencies to make investments and begin to reduce that vulnerability,” Mr. Harrell said.

Rep. Krishnamoorthi acknowledged that while open-weight AI models offer Americans easy access, models from adversarial countries can create privacy and security risks, highlighting the need for safeguards including his proposed No Adversarial AI Act and restrictions on federal procurement of such models. 

“There's no such thing as a free lunch. There's always a cost,” said Rep. Krishnamoorthi. “First, there's a data cost, as we see here in the Chinese model DeepSeek's own privacy statement. Deepseek directly collects, processes and stores your personal data in the People's Republic of China.” 

Rep. Tokuda stated that Congress must address the risks created by U.S. companies continuing to invest, manufacture, and form partnerships in China, including the potential transfer of sensitive technologies and the difficulty of tracking dependencies embedded in products, components, and software.

“Allowing Chinese companies to manufacture cars here is a terrible idea,” Mr. Oren Cass, Founder and Chief Economist at American Compass, replied. “The question in my mind is: who is actually on the other side of these arguments?”

Rep. Suozzi emphasized the need to clearly define the U.S.-China relationship and urged consideration of how the United States can balance strategic competition with cooperation while maintaining strong alliances and protecting U.S. interests. 

“To be concise, our strategy is quite simple,” Mr. Craig Singleton, China Program Senior Director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said. “It should be to slow them down and to speed up. That should be the central focus.”

Rep. Stevens explained that U.S. trade and industrial policies have real consequences for small manufacturers and workers, arguing that policymakers must account for changing global realities and strengthen American manufacturing competitiveness while defining the country’s role in the international economic order. 

“President Truman once said that America is not built on fear – America is built on courage, determination, and the willingness to do the job at hand,” said Rep. Stevens. “And so our job is to secure our freedoms, secure the ability of small business owners and manufacturers, and for workers to succeed.”

Rep. Brown highlighted the importance of protecting manufacturing jobs and communities by addressing supply chain and technology security vulnerabilities while pairing import restrictions with investments in domestic manufacturing, small businesses, and workforce development.

“When unfair competition drives production overseas, we lose more than a factory. We lose skilled workers, supplier networks, and steady paychecks,” Rep. Brown said.

Mr. Harrell agreed: “It is critically important as we reduce our dependencies from China, we have to do more to invest here in the United States.” 

###