The US Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, referred to revelations of a chip development by Huawei Technologies Co. as “incredibly disturbing” and emphasised the need for her agency to find more effective ways to enforce its export-control policies.
She stated during a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee, “We need different instruments. “We require more resources for enforcement,”
Raimondo cited a legislative plan that has stalled that would increase her department’s authority over technology transactions that are determined to pose dangers to national security, as well as a different approach suggested by Senator Maria Cantwell to reduce risk in the tech supply chain. Raimondo declined to comment on the investigation being conducted by the Commerce Department on a new Huawei smartphone that has a cutting-edge 7-nanometer chip.
Raimondo expressed her pride in her department’s decision to sanction an American corporation the highest amount ever for selling Huawei unlicensed goods earlier this year. She told the committee, “We’re as tough as we need to be, but we need more resources.
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The session was her second appearance before legislators since she returned from a trip to China in late August that was intended to normalise the tense diplomatic ties between Washington and Beijing. The Huawei phone, which was released when she was in China, sparked a discussion in Washington about the efficacy of US efforts to slow China’s technological growth, with Raimondo caught in the middle of it.
In testimony to the House last month, Raimondo stated that she had no proof that China could produce advanced 7-nanometer semiconductors on a large scale. Nevertheless, she is still under enormous political pressure from Republicans in Congress to immediately tighten rules.
While deciding whether and when to expand controls announced in October, the administration is also working to strengthen ties with Beijing and open the door for a potential meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a November meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in San Francisco.