Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) is urging the International Trade Commission to ban imports of certain screens from the Chinese firm BOE after the company was found to be infringing patents from Samsung.
Moolenaar, who chairs the House’s select committee on China, told ITC Chair Rhonda Schmidtlein in a letter that in failing to put in place a ban, “BOE’s IP theft will continue to benefit the [People’s Republic of China’s] military-civil fusion strategy.”
Advanced LCD and OLED display systems are known for their presence in televisions and other consumer products. But Moolenaar has previously argued that the displays are also of strategic importance because of their role in weapons systems “from Javelin missiles to drones.”
“BOE’s growing dominance in the display industry will leave the United States overly reliant on the PRC for an advanced technology critical to military applications,” Moolenaar wrote in the letter, which was sent Wednesday.
Moolenaar’s committee is poised to take an increasingly prominent role in congressional technology policy. Up until now, lawmakers have focused on the supply chain for advanced semiconductors, as well as TikTok, as ways of pushing back against China.
With President-elect Donald Trump’s administration likely to be even more hawkish, Moolenaar has aimed to crack down on China’s role in multiple American supply chains.
Moolenaar’s recent proposal to withdraw permanent normal trade relations with China listed several pages of industries that should be targeted with extensive tariffs because of their strategic significance, including displays, cloud storage, medicines, batteries and energy production.
The letter is part of a request for public comment on an initial ITC determination that BOE infringed on Samsung’s patents, but that BOE’s actions don’t sufficiently impact U.S. industry to warrant a ban. Samsung is based in South Korea.
“The Committee urges the Commission to impose a wide-ranging remedy in this investigation that will protect U.S. national security interests,” Moolenaar wrote.
And there’s more: We asked Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) if he learned anything from his Take It Down Act making it into the CR when other bills to tackle social media failed. The measure seeks to make it easier to have revenge porn and deepfake nudes removed from social media.
Of course, landing in the CR is no longer the win it seemed earlier this week — and the bill’s fate is now up in the air as Congress scrambles to come up with a new strategy to avoid a government shutdown.
But it does teach us a little bit about Cruz’s approach as he prepares to chair the Senate Commerce Committee next Congress.
Cruz suggested that dealing with very targeted problems was the key to making it into the original CR.
“When there’s a specific problem, we should legislate to address that specific problem, but we shouldn’t get in the way of the innovation and productivity and job creation that AI promises,” Cruz said.
