Comment by Jon Finer

Like other areas of economic statecraft such as sanctions, export controls are not a one-off fix. They require relentless vigilance, iterative adjustment, and, when necessary, escalation. And, importantly, they are strongest when both the executive and legislative branches of government reinforce each other’s actions to maximum effect. [...] This is particularly true for AI chips, nearly all of which are designed and sold by American companies, and the advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment needed to make them, where U.S., Dutch, and Japanese companies dominate the market. Together, these technologies enable the U.S.’s most important remaining advantage in the AI race—a substantial lead in compute needed to train and operate large language models. [...] For many reasons, now is not the time to take our foot off the gas. Now is not the time to lessen support for the most critical areas of U.S. industry, or to pull back on efforts to constrain the precise areas of technology that could enable rapid Chinese economic and military advances that would undermine key U.S. advantages.