US Parliament Negotiates Budget To Enhance US Tech Competitiveness With China

The US Senate wants to increase the budget to strengthen the competitiveness of US technology over China. (photo: doc. pixabay)

JAKARTA - Leaders of the US House of Representatives and Senate said on Wednesday, November 17 that lawmakers will negotiate to try to reach a final agreement on a bill to increase the competitiveness of US technology with China and semiconductor manufacturing.

The Democratic Majority Leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, has sought to attach the bill to his $750 billion annual defense policy proposal. He said Monday that he plans to add the US Innovation and Competition Act (USICA) to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

He also hopes that the law will be passed so that US President Joe Biden can sign it into law this year.

USICA put in 52 billion US dollars to increase US semiconductor production and authorized 190 billion dollars to strengthen US technology and research to compete with China.

But plans to merge USICA and NDAA have faced opposition, as Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement on Wednesday. "Senate Republicans made it clear that they would block USICA's entry in the NDAA," Schumer said.

The Senate passed USICA with bipartisan support last June. But the US House of Representatives never took the step passed by the Senate. Parliamentary leaders have said before that they wanted to pass their own bill, but never did.

Schumer and Pelosi said they would now enter formal negotiations on USICA by going to a "conference."

"Working with President Biden, parliament and the Senate have drafted bipartisan legislation to support American manufacturing, improve our supply chain, and invest in next-generation cutting-edge technology research," the two said. "There are still a number of important issues that have not been resolved."

Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell said the Senate had the upper hand on USICA but Congress had to act quickly. "America's R&D infrastructure needs to be cleaned up," Cantwell told reporters.

Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent in a coalition with Democrats, said the combined NDAA and USICA would be worth more than $1 trillion in one year.

He said too much money would go to high-profit defense contractors as well as to semiconductor companies shifting manufacturing to China, eliminating jobs in the US, and contributing to the current worldwide chip shortage.