Senate Banking Chair to Renew Push for Investment Restrictions

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said Jan. 18 that he remains committed to passing two China-related investment measures that failed to become law last year.

One provision, offered by Sens. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., and Jon Tester, D-Mont., would prohibit China and other “foreign adversaries” from buying American farmland and agricultural businesses (see 2307260029). “We can’t allow foreign adversaries to buy up farmland in Ohio and around the country,” Brown said. “It’s a threat to our national security, and it’s a threat to rural economies and our way of life.”

The other proposal, put forth by Sens. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, is designed to better monitor U.S. investment in China’s development of critical technology, including military technology (see 2307260029). Both pieces of legislation were included in the Senate version of the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) but did not make it into the final NDAA that Congress passed in December.

Brown said that a third Senate Banking priority, which experienced a similar fate last year and which his committee highlighted during a Jan. 11 hearing (see 2401110042), is the proposed Fentanyl Eradication and Narcotics Deterrence (FEND) Off Fentanyl Act, which would use sanctions and anti-money laundering measures to counter the illicit fentanyl supply chain.

“I am committed to working with my colleagues to make these [three] provisions law,” Brown said.

While the Biden administration’s recent executive order restricting outbound investment in China (see Ref:2308100045]) is “headed in the right direction,” congressional action is needed to provide a “clear legal mandate” for such limits, said Emily Kilcrease, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, who testified before Brown’s committee.

Lindsay Gorman, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy, testified that the executive order is a “good start” but that policymakers might need to look beyond the three sectors it focuses on: artificial intelligence, quantum technology and semiconductors. House lawmakers earlier in the week debated a bipartisan bill that could also impose investment prohibitions on China's hypersonics and supercomputing sectors, as well as industries in other countries of concern (see 2401180067).

Gorman advocated forming a National Technology Competitiveness Analysis Center within the Commerce Department to help U.S. policymakers better understand China’s technology development efforts.

Jamil Jaffer, former chief counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Senate Banking Committee he is hopeful that at least some of the measures mentioned by Brown will gain House support and become law. “I think the nation is waking up to the China threat,” he testified.

Also during the hearing, Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., highlighted a bill he recently introduced with Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., to prohibit the U.S. government from funding certain foreign biotechnology companies, such as China’s BGI Group. He said he’s concerned that BGI could use such funding to gain access to American citizens’ genetic data.