For over a century, American innovation has driven economic growth, job creation, and global progress. Our nation’s competitive edge is synonymous with our ingenuity and the technological advances made possible by a free market system that incentivizes the pursuit of bold solutions and rewards success.
Today, the United States is facing a serious challenge to its position as the global economic leader. China, under the leadership of Xi Jinping and the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party, is investing billions to overtake America as the world’s lead innovator. They are rapidly gaining ground in the race for global STEM talent and R&D, both fundamentals that underlie the success of any technologically-driven economy.
To date, the United States has managed to maintain its lead over our Chinese competitors in the ongoing race for technological supremacy, but that lead is shrinking. Over the last three years, elements of our government have worked to systematically undermine and weaken America’s innovators during a time when we are facing a serious challenge to our global leadership.
On Thursday, President Joe Biden addressed the nation and assured Americans that our best days are ahead of us and that the fundamental forces that shape and preserve our democracy are strong. What he didn’t say is that his administration is hard at work, stretching the limits of its executive authority to undermine America’s leading companies and hampering the ability of businesses, large and small, to grow and compete on the global stage.
Rather than working to equip our workforce to succeed in the 21st century or advocating for trade rules that favor American businesses, the Administration is seemingly focused on knee-capping the very American companies that are driving U.S. growth and innovation through attacks on American innovators and job creators, launching frivolous investigations, and threatening and activating onerous and expensive litigation.
For the past three years, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division have conducted an antimerger crusade that has caused billions of dollars in value destruction and harmed American businesses, employees, and consumers to no apparent end other than to demonstrate that they are “tough on big business.” FTC chair Lina Khan’s anti-corporate political agenda has been laid bare by a glaring zero-win track record in court.
As if harming American innovators in the name of domestic politics weren’t bad enough, the current Administration also refuses to stand up for American companies and workers on the global stage.
America’s innovators are facing the rising tide of costly regulation from around the world. The last thing the U.S. government should be doing is rubber-stamping efforts by foreign regulators to boost its companies and hamstring America’s homegrown innovators. Yet it has done just that by encouraging the EU to unfairly target U.S. companies, especially through the Digital Markets Act.
In November, the Biden Administration took its assault on U.S. tech one step further by withdrawing support for longstanding U.S. and democratic digital trade proposals being considered by the World Trade Organization (WTO). Strong digital trade rules that enable the free flow of commerce and data are vital to American companies and workers across all industries. The U.S. should be aiming to set global rules that prevent authoritarian governments from limiting access to digital tools, information, and platforms for free expression and ensure U.S. companies are able to compete on a level playing field. This decision from President Biden’s United States Trade Representative sends a signal to our adversaries and allies that we will not stand up for American companies, their workers, their ideas, or their products.
Throughout this Administration, the Biden-Harris team has departed from long-standing regulatory norms that have enabled America to lead the world in innovation. Instead of championing the domestic innovators that are preventing China and others from outcompeting the United States, our government has left them fighting with one hand tied behind their backs, all seemingly in the name of politics.
America’s global leadership is not a partisan issue. The Biden Administration needs to stop allowing its politics to jeopardize the ability of American innovators and job creators to compete globally. A failure to do so will risk ceding the 21st century to the authoritarian regimes that seek to divide and destabilize our union.
Mimi Walters is a former Republican U.S. Congresswoman (CA-45) who sat on the House Energy & Commerce Committee. Prior, Ms. Walters served in both the Assembly and Senate in the California State Legislature.