Tethered by the supply chain: US tech community resists Donald Trump’s China tariffs, fearing collateral damage
The Trump administration’s hard line on trade has shone a spotlight on just how much US tech suppliers depend on Chinese business
As political momentum builds to punish China for intellectual property theft and forced technology transfers, the Trump administration has met with resistance from an unlikely source: the technology industry itself.
US trade groups, think tanks and academics are pushing back on the harsh measures proposed for Chinese tech companies, returning the spotlight to the issue of technological interdependence in a global economy.
In testimony last month before the US House of Representatives, Samm Sacks, a senior fellow specialising on tech policy at the Washington-based research firm Centre for Strategic & International Studies, said: “In confronting China, we must have a clear understanding about the consequences of our actions and where there will be costs to ourselves.”
“The challenge is that the US’s and Chinese technology developments, supply chains, commercial markets are tightly intertwined,” Sacks told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology.
“Unilateral actions that isolate the United States will undermine US economic prosperity, our technological leadership and our capacity for innovation.”
Sacks is among the many voices responding to the Trump administration’s threat of harsh trade measures against China.