The following content is sponsored by Americans for Limited Government.
No president did as much to confront China as President Trump. After decades of elites thinking China was our economic partner or cowering in fear over challenging the communist nation, Trump shattered the myth that we couldn’t confront China without the economy collapsing.
Right out of the gate, Trump ordered an investigation of China’s intellectual property theft. He launched a “whole-of-government” strategy, taking 210 direct actions against China across ten departments, forcing China to the table to renegotiate trade agreements and get better deals for American workers.
After four years of Trump’s tough on China leadership, Main Street, and even Wall Street, was no longer under the illusion that we couldn’t stand up to China. Trump knew that China couldn’t retaliate without doing more harm to themselves. The momentum was undeniable. When Trump left office in 2021, he left Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in a great position on China. All they had to do was keep it up.
But Biden and Harris bent the knee to President Xi Jinping. They capitulated on intellectual property theft, unfair trade scams, and national security.
The Chinese Communist Party has always had a policy of stealing American intellectual property. The Biden and Harris administration made it easier for them to do so by supporting the TRIPS waiver, which removed global intellectual property (IP) protections for therapeutics and diagnostics developed by American companies, empowering China to steal our intellectual property and technology. You read that right: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris wanted to make it easier for China to steal from us.
And steal more, they did. For the nineteenth year in a row, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative labeled China a high-priority threat to American intellectual property in its annual Special 301 Report. The USTR estimates worldwide theft of American IP costs us up to $600 billion annually. China and Hong Kong account for more than 83 percent of the value of counterfeit goods seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection—and 85 percent of global counterfeit seizures between 2017 and 2019, according to a 2021 joint study by the European Union.
China has surpassed the U.S. in the development of 37 out of 44 critical emerging technologies. This includes fields such as AI, military, biotech, energy, and space exploration—rapid advancements in future technology that could irrevocably alter the global balance of power. But, of course, China didn’t get to this point because it was better than America. No, as everyone knows, they got here by lying, cheating, and stealing.
Congress is considering several pieces of legislation to confront Chinese intellectual property theft. Bills like the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) and the Promoting and Respecting Economically Vital American Innovation Leadership (PREVAIL) Act would spur innovation and protect intellectual property. But passing legislation won’t be enough without a presidential administration that enforces the law. The United States must recognize that the rest of the world is not as benevolent and honest as we are and adopt a uniform approach with law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and trade officials.
But how can we expect our enemies or even our allies to respect American intellectual property rights when the Biden and Harris administration doesn’t respect them? In her first failed campaign for the White House, Kamala Harris pushed the federal government to execute “march-in rights” and seize American drug patents and license them to other manufacturers. In 2023, Biden proposed using march-in rights to steal patents from American drug companies.
Respect from the Chinese government will only come through strength. We’ve seen Kamala Harris talk tough as Biden’s border czar while letting millions of illegal immigrants flood our border. China has seen her too, and they don’t respect her. They call her the “female Obama,” and they don’t mean it as a compliment.
If we get four more years of the Harris-Biden administration, we won’t have any intellectual property left for China to steal.
