[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 105 (Tuesday, June 23, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3044-S3046]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CHINA
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, there is an old Chinese saying attributed
to Deng Xiaoping that goes:
Hide your strength, [and] bide your time. Hide your
strength, [and] bide your time.
China has, of course, been hiding its strength and biding its time
for many years now.
For too long, the West has turned a blind eye to what has been
happening in the People's Republic of China--controlled, of course, by
the Chinese Communist Party. We allowed them to join the World Trade
Organization, naively hoping that, by allowing them to participate in
the global economy, that they would somehow adopt Western principles of
freedom and democracy. As I said, that was a naive hope, and it didn't
happen. To the contrary, China benefited from this access to global
markets and became a major world economy, but they actively resisted
Western standards as we know now.
China continues to refuse to follow international norms. They use
their access to sensitive technologies to steal them. They have become
a major global power that we, of course, cannot trust. We should take
President Xi at his word when he says that China plans to
``reincorporate'' Taiwan by 2027--less than a year away. He has told
the People's Liberation Army to be ready for that by 2027.
Never in the history of the world has the United States competition--
strategic competition--with China mattered more. Perhaps the most
critical nexus of this competition is in manufacturing in critical
industries, such as advanced semiconductors. We know semiconductors
underpin all modern technology--everything from the phones in our
pockets to the avionics in an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, even in our
washing machines and our refrigerators. Chips power far more than
consumer electronics. They are integral to the energy grid--cell
towers, water treatment plants, agriculture equipment--and other forms
of critical infrastructure.
They also play a huge role in our national defense. Missile defense
systems; advanced fifth-generation fighters like the F-35, as I
mentioned; artificial intelligence; data centers--all of these require
an astounding number of the most advanced semiconductors. Now with the
global AI competition becoming a two-country race between the United
States and China, it is clear that control of the future of the world
economy will come down to which nation can produce the most advanced
semiconductor chips and secure complex and highly vulnerable supply
chains.
Today, more than 90 percent of the world's most advanced
semiconductors are made other than in the United States--mainly Taiwan
but, of course, South Korea where Samsung is located as well.
Going back to 1990, the United States produced nearly 40 percent of
the world's semiconductors. But over time, we lost our advantage in
this critical industry.
By 2021, this figure had decreased to 12 percent, and by 2024, our
share represented only 8 percent of the advanced semiconductors made in
the world.
With China threatening the invasion of Taiwan and the possibility of
disruption as a result of another pandemic, or perhaps a natural
disaster, this issue has never been more important.
Should they be successful in their quest to pull off the so-called
reunification with Taiwan, President Xi could cut the United States off
from our ability to access the most advanced chips made in the world by
a Taiwan semiconductor company and bring our defense production to a
grinding halt at the snap of a finger.
But don't just take my word for it. In a widely cited 2023 report
from the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, it says:
A significant shock to the delivery of chips . . . could
have an impact as large as either of the two previous
economic recessions in the [United States]: The global
financial crisis [of 2009] and the global pandemic [of 2020].
Well, we might ask: How do we find ourselves in this place with this
incredible vulnerability? How did the United States go from producing
almost half of the world's chips to now less than 10 percent?
Well, Dan Wang, who wrote the book ``Breakneck,'' has maybe a
suggestion. He says one difference is that America is run by lawyers,
and China is run by engineers.
Now, as a recovering lawyer myself, I don't think that is a complete
explanation. But the point is, this has been a point of focus by the
Chinese Communist Party and the People's Republic of China for decades
now while they have hidden their motives and bid their time, and now we
find ourselves in an increasing position of vulnerability and in a
competition with them for this most advanced technology to fuel the
data centers, the training, artificial intelligence that are going to
determine how everything from our weapons systems to our industrial
economy work in the future.
But the difference is this: China has a willingness to violate
international law, and it has a centralized economy. It doesn't have to
worry about permitting. It doesn't have to worry about the bureaucracy.
It doesn't have to worry about the slow rate at which the Pentagon
creates and produces new weapons systems to compete and to keep a
country strong.
Conversely, we have a market economy in the United States that does
provide a lot of strength--and particularly in terms of strategic
capital--but we need to identify the importance of this essential
technology before we begin to do something about it.
And now we know we also have vulnerabilities when it comes to things
like critical minerals and rare earth element producing. There are only
two places in the United States that actually produce the motors that
are made from magnets that are produced from rare earth, and 90 percent
of it is done in China.
But literally this is another example of a component of the
technology that
[[Page S3045]]
goes into almost every piece of technology--certainly everything with a
motor in it--and we are dependent, still largely, on China for access
to those rare earth elements and the critical mineral processing.
China built its empire of industrial inputs on the back of forced
labor and diplomatic manipulation--that is another difference between
the United States and China.
What they can't produce at home, they coerce others to produce for
them in places like Africa, Southeast Asia, and even Latin America at
prices that undercut world markets with almost no humanitarian
protection for their laborers.
China has done this in a multitude of industries, as I said, not just
semiconductors.
Through its Belt and Road Initiative, China has become the primary
buyer of rare earths from mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
in the heart of Africa and Tanzania and other parts of Africa.
This has allowed them to solidify their control of the supply chain
for these rare earth elements, which I said are essential to literately
every electric motor, and they have enforced strict export controls to
maintain their position.
They have used this strategy to create a near global monopoly on the
mining and processing of rare earths and critical minerals such as
lithium, which is used to produce magnets and other essential
components for vehicles, drones, defense systems, and much more.
China has also cornered the market on raw materials that make up all
of our pharmaceutical ingredients--so-called API, active pharmaceutical
inputs. These are--can you imagine the United States and other
countries around the world dependent on China to produce the
medications that we take on a regular basis to keep us healthy and cure
disease? But that is where we are right now. We have been asleep at the
switch and allowed China to hide their motives and bide their time
until they put us in an incredibly vulnerable position.
Well, the United States finally started to wake up to this during the
COVID pandemic when we began to ask: OK, where can we get the masks and
the gowns necessary for medical personnel that treat people with COVID
infections? Lo and behold, we didn't make any of it in America. All of
it was made in China. And that is just one simple example.
With global supply chains thrown into disarray, we found ourselves
with a shortage of many essential goods--particularly those that
require semiconductors. The demand for electronic devices for students
and new remote work policies helped America realize the urgent need to
reshore--that is, to bring back to America--some of the manufacturing
capability which we had, over the years, allowed China to attract to
our detriment.
Even industries like auto manufacturing were severely disrupted by
the lack of local chip supplies.
The Trump administration had already contemplated the issue of chips
and this vulnerability before COVID and asked Congress to act. And I
still remember the Secretary of State, in particular, Mike Pompeo and
the Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross were the first ones in the first
Trump administration to bring this to the attention and to sound the
alarm.
But the pandemic made clear as day that we could not afford to kick
the can down the road on something as essential as semiconductors. So
back in 2020, I got together with our colleague Senator Mark Warner, a
Democrat from Virginia, to introduce the CHIPS for America Act.
The goal of the bill was pretty simple--to restore American
leadership in the semiconductor manufacturing industry.
It authorized the creation of a CHIPS Program at the Department of
Commerce to support all chipmaking activities on American soil from R&D
to manufacturing.
Within 6 months, with the good help of our friends across the Capitol
in the House of Representatives--particularly my friend Michael
McCaul, Congressman from the Austin area--within 6 months, the CHIPS
Act became law; and about a year and a half later, it was fully funded
by Congress through the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act.
This law provided nearly $40 billion in manufacturing incentives for
semiconductors to bring that capacity back to American soil and roughly
$13 billion for research and workforce development because it pays more
than a minimum wage to do these highly sophisticated manufacturing jobs
of producing these advanced semiconductors. So training of the
workforce was really very, very important and continued investment in
research and development so we can stay ahead of the Chinese
competition.
But, obviously, most important to me in the CHIPS and Science Act was
the major investment that this produced in my State, the State of
Texas. We used this funding to build new semiconductor fabs at Samsung,
Texas Instruments, and other places, create new workforce pathways, and
quickly upskill Texans for these industries that accelerate advanced
chip manufacturing.
In 2023, Governor Abbott signed the Texas CHIPS Act to build on our
work at the Federal level and further invest in the Texas chips
industry.
This State law established the Texas Semiconductor Innovation
Consortium and the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund to further
incentivize investment in this critical industry, which contributes
more than $469 billion--$469 billion--to the Texas economy.
So today, Texas has the second largest semiconductor workforce in the
Nation totaling more than 42,000 well-paying jobs thanks to these
investments. And I am proud to say that Texas has not only become a
national, but a global leader in the semiconductor industry.
Now, there is certainly a lot more work that needs to be done to
address America's supply chain vulnerabilities, not only for
semiconductors but for mining and processing rare earth elements and
active pharmaceutical ingredients as well.
But the CHIPS and Science Act was an important step toward reshoring
our critical industries.
My friend Will Inboden, the former Executive Director of the Clements
Center for National Security at the University of Texas who now serves
as executive vice president and provost at the university, summed it up
perfectly. He said:
In the 19th century, the key ingredient of military power
was gunpowder. In the 20th century, it was petroleum, and now
it is semiconductors.
I am proud this legislation has proven to be a contributor to
reshoring American manufacturing in an industry that will determine who
controls the future of the world.
Were it not for the CHIPS and Science Act, we may not have been in a
position to help build the artificial intelligence economy, with the
advent of these huge data centers, necessary to train the AI models so
that we can be a leader and indeed win the competition with China. If
we didn't have access to these advanced semiconductors and continued to
be dependent on those produced over in Asia, it is doubtful we would be
able to be where we are in terms of leading in that competition.
So thanks to the generational investment that was made in this
legislation, if we have the fortitude and determination to do so, the
United States has the potential to both design and build, here right at
home, the infrastructure we need in this century and the next.
The truth is, we live in very exciting times. Technology is rapidly
advancing in life-changing ways--sometimes even faster than we know how
to keep up with. But what is critical is that America continues its
leadership and continues to lead this revolution.
I want to make sure that future generations can live in a world where
the United States--not the Chinese Communist Party--remains dominant
and in a world where we continue to lead from a framework of freedom,
democracy, and the rule of law.
Keeping up with domestic manufacturing in critical technologies like
semiconductors is essential to that end.
So as I look back, I am very proud of the work we all did together
through this CHIPS and Science Act, which transformed not only our
national security but transformed Texas and put us in the posture to
ensure that America leads the way for generations yet to come.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
[[Page S3046]]
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Curtis). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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