U.S. lawmakers effort bipartisan bill to counter China
The U.S. Senate unveil ways to counter China with a new bipartisan bill. Yahoo Finance's Jessica Smith shares the details.
Video transcript
JULIE HYMAN: In the meantime, though, we're going to talk about US versus China. Efforts to help this country compete with China are gaining steam on Capitol Hill, one of the few areas, actually, of bipartisan agreement in Washington. Jessica Smith spoke with two of the lawmakers leading that push. And Jess is here to discuss. Jess.
JESSICA SMITH: Yeah, Julie, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer directed the Senate to come up with a package to help the US counter China. And this week, we really started to see pieces of it come together. Lawmakers in both the House and Senate introduced a bipartisan bill called Endless Frontier Act. It is the centerpiece of Schumer's efforts here. And what it does is it calls for $100 billion to invest in research, in technology, science, research and development. It also calls for $10 billion for regional tech hubs throughout the country. It will focus on things like workforce training and R&D. It also creates a supply chain resiliency and crisis response program.
One of the goals is to make sure shortages, like the ones we're seeing with chips right now, don't happen again in the future. I did talk to Republican Senator Todd Young about this. He is one of the senators who worked on this with Majority Leader Schumer. And he says Congress has no choice but to act because the US is really falling behind. Let's watch.
TODD YOUNG: Their increasing sophistication when it comes to development of artificial intelligence technologies, their theft of our intellectual property, and the amount of data that they are able to take from their own citizens and from citizens around the world to feed into these algorithms, will allow them to surpass the United States in fairly short order.
JESSICA SMITH: Also talked to Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna about this. He worked on the House version of the bill. And he says that an important aspect of this is those regional tech hubs. He says that will make sure that innovation is happening all across the country.
RO KHANNA: It can help revitalize mid-sized cities, rural communities. It helps us lead in innovation and is helping communities that face the industrialization or the decline of traditional mining have new employment, have a way of having young people stay in those communities and have great opportunities.
JESSICA SMITH: Now the White House did put out a statement praising the bill, saying that President Biden looks forward to working further on it with Congress. A Senate committee is expected to take it up next week. Majority Leader Schumer says he wants to move quickly on this one.
