Several members of the House of Representatives are calling on the Commerce Department to immediately investigate potential import restrictions on additional information and communications technology products from China.
In January the Bureau of Industry and Security issued a final rule banning the importation or sale of connected passenger vehicles integrating specific pieces of hardware and software, or those components sold separately, with a sufficient nexus to China (including Hong Kong or Macau) or Russia. The prohibitions on software will take effect for model year 2027 and the prohibitions on hardware will take effect for model year 2030, or Jan. 1, 2029, for units without a model year. BIS said it anticipated issuing a separate rulemaking addressing the technologies present in connected commercial vehicles like trucks and buses, though that does not appear to have happened yet.
In an Oct. 30 letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, five Republicans who chair various relevant House committees and subcommittees urged DOC’s Office of Information and Communications Technology and Services to also “investigate and restrict adversary products in other critical and emerging industries,” particularly the following.
- advanced and networked sensors (cameras, LiDAR, and connected sensors for infrastructure)
- advanced medical equipment and components (surgical robotics and precision devices)
- artificial intelligence infrastructure (technologies and equipment for AI data centers and data center construction)
- automated industrial machinery and robotics (robotics to augment U.S. workforce and reshore manufacturing)
- cellular Internet of things modules and device management platforms (LTE/5G/NB-IoT modules, eSIM/iSIM provisioning, device clouds, and firmware-over-the-air services embedded in critical equipment)
- electronic design automation tools and semiconductor IP cores (chip design software, verification toolchains, standard‑cell libraries, and reusable processor/multimedia IP blocks that precede fabrication)
- energy generation and storage (technologies for grids, transmission, and storage, especially for AI growth)
- industrial control systems (supervisory control software and programmable logic controllers that operate factories, pipelines, water systems, rail, and buildings across non‑energy infrastructure)
- public key infrastructure, certificate authorities, and code‑signing services (cryptographic trust services that underpin operating systems, applications, and secure firmware/software update pipelines)
- routers and communications hardware (networking hardware/software for ICT)
- semiconductor manufacturing equipment (fabrication tools critical to semiconductor production)
- subsea cable systems and landing station equipment (repeaters, branching units, power‑feed equipment, and shore‑end control systems enabling intercontinental data transport)
- trucking (ground transport and logistics)
- unmanned systems (drones (air, sea, land) for commercial and government)
“We have already seen through a variety of cyber-attacks against the United States that China views information technology as a battlefield,” the lawmakers asserted. Moreover, “the fusion of digital capabilities with critical infrastructure has whittled away geographic borders, as connected infrastructure or products can be controlled or updated by entities in another country.”
The letter therefore concluded that the industries listed above require “immediate consideration of potential OICTS restrictions to protect against malign Chinese entities that are attempting to infiltrate the U.S. market.”
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