If the United States wants to truly challenge Chinese technology dominance, it must build an international consensus leveraging its key alliances and partnerships like NATO, Five Eyes, USMCA, or the Quad to establish a trusted technology ecosystem across critical industries, especially those bridging the cyber-physical divide. Achieving this consensus will not be easy. It will require international cooperation to overcome geopolitical resistance, economic incentives that favor status quo, and the technical complexity of securing an international digital marketplace. Fortunately, the United States already has the alliance structures, diplomatic networks and domestic authorities to 1execute this strategy and avoid a future where China controls the global “real economy.” To realize this alternate future, the United States must move first, but not alone.
As an initial matter, it is essential that we restrict Chinese consumer and technology products from Western and western-aligned domestic technology ecosystems given the blurry line between the cyber domain and the physical world. The urgency of this endeavor stems from the evolving nature of national security. Traditionally, sovereignty was understood in physical terms: control over territory, military assets, and economic resources. Today, however, sovereignty also depends on who controls the data, software, and digital systems that power national infrastructure. A compromised power grid, an infiltrated telecommunications network, or a manipulated industrial control system can pose as great a threat as a kinetic strike. The blurring of the cyber-physical divide (meaning the fusion of digital capabilities with critical infrastructure) has whittled away geographic borders as connected infrastructure or products can be controlled or updated from another country. Without a concerted effort to create a secure ecosystem among allied nations, adversarial actors will continue to exploit these vulnerabilities to undermine economic and military stability.
A unified technology framework across allied nations is necessary to counteract the influence of adversarial state-controlled industries. The People’s Republic of China has spent decades positioning itself as the dominant supplier of key digital infrastructure from 5G networks to IoT devices. Unlike Western corporations that operate independently of their governments, Chinese technology firms are inextricably linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and operate under laws that compel cooperation with state intelligence operations. Technology supplied by PRC firms, even when ostensibly commercial, carries an inherent security risk. The West has already taken steps to address this challenge, most notably in telecommunications, where Huawei and ZTE have been restricted in U.S. and allied networks, but these efforts remain piecemeal and reactive.
Building a trusted marketplace across key international partnerships offers a way forward. This trusted technology framework is not just a US interest, it is one that we share with our allies and partners. By creating unified supply chain standards, restricting the use of untrusted vendors, and pooling demand for secure alternatives, the U.S. and its allies can create a market for secure technology. This would provide an incentive for companies to meet rigorous security and supply chain standards while reducing dependence on adversarial suppliers. The United States already has many tools at its disposal. To implement this standard at home, the federal government could use a combination of International Emergency Economic Powers Act emergency declaration and associated tariffs, increased exercise of the Department of Commerce’s supply chain authorities under Executive Order 13873, and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) equipment authorization and telecommunications services regulations to address cybersecurity supply chain risks while also creating the conditions for increased domestic and allied manufacturing. Specifically, regulations like the Department of Commerce’s automotive supply chain rulemaking show that the United States can lead by example.2 This regulation insulated the United States’s automotive supply chain from critical component inputs from China and Russia, creating demand for suppliers from the rest of world to generate trusted supply.
Several statements of administration policy have begun to recognize the need for allied cooperation on critical and emerging technology to achieve allied scale manufacturing. The United States’s technology prosperity agreements with Japan3 and Korea4 included sections devoted to “Trusted Technology Leadership” that include a number of priority sectors that the countries will collaborate in to “enhance longstanding collaboration on key technologies and practices to enable technology leadership in the global arena.” Additionally, the general terms of the US-UK economic prosperity deal5 included a commitment that “both countries intend to cooperate on the effective use of investment security measures, export controls, and ICT vendor security, building on the current levels of close alignment on trade and investment security measures.” There is also significant support for this type of policy in Congress, where members from both parties have introduced several bills to prohibit PRC connected technologies.678 At a recent Congressional hearing on the Department of Commerce’s automotive supply chain rule, an expert witness stated, “the [connected vehicle] rule alters the landscape of China’s ability to use a global manufacturing base to spread its non-market practices in our own trading blocs, and it can be applied more broadly to address systemic supply chain vulnerabilities.”9
Further, many of the United States’s diplomatic structures already exist to implement and negotiate this trusted technology framework. For example, the 2025 Quad foreign ministers meeting joint resolution stated, “The Quad recognizes the transformative power of critical and emerging technologies and will continue to advance secure and trusted information and communications technology infrastructure while expanding our work on artificial intelligence, semiconductors, technical standards, biotechnology, and cybersecurity.” The Quad forum and others like it are ready fora for diplomatic implementation, while the framework can be built around technologies and industries listed in U.S. government priority statements like the critical and emerging technologies list, Department of War critical technology areas, or the technology priorities of the Department of Commerce office that administers the automotive supply chain rule.101112
Opponents of this framework will primarily be motivated by short-term economic incentives. Many industries, particularly in manufacturing and telecommunications, have grown dependent on low-cost, software-enabled Chinese components. Transitioning to a secure supply chain will involve short-term costs. However, the long-term cost of inaction is far greater. The economic damage from a major cyber-physical attack would easily outweigh the cost of building a resilient system in the first place. Furthermore, maintaining sovereignty over a population’s data and the integrity of its connected infrastructure is an inherent government responsibility and should be priceless.
In a time of extreme geopolitical tension, even between America and its allies, building trust will be an obstacle. America’s alliances have increasingly recognized the importance of technological security. However, there are major differences between how these blocs approach the issue. Many European nations have been hesitant to fully sever ties with Chinese suppliers, prioritizing economic relationships over security concerns. Bridging these gaps will require diplomatic leadership, clear evidence of the risks involved, and economic cooperation to ensure that allied nations are not left without viable alternatives. Partners that share this new supply chain standard can continue to compete and negotiate on other tariff and non-trade barriers. However, these trade disputes should be seen as secondary to the overarching need to maintain the integrity of the insulated supply chain ecosystem itself.
Finally, cybersecurity professionals and information technology companies will be the first to point to existing cybersecurity frameworks as existing means to mitigate cyber risks. However, existing standards are designed to protect against unauthorized access by third parties. They do not address the fundamental problem of untrusted vendors having built-in access to their products. A supply chain risk posed by an adversarial manufacturer cannot be mitigated by cybersecurity best practices alone. A viable solution is to exclude such vendors from the market altogether, replacing them with secure alternatives from trusted partners.
The path forward requires bold action. The U.S. and its allies must first establish a common framework that defines which industries and technologies require secure supply chains and what standards must be met. Next, they must develop and enforce clear exclusionary policies against high-risk vendors, ensuring that critical infrastructure is not compromised at the source. At the same time, allied nations must invest in building a competitive ecosystem for trusted technology, ensuring that security does not come at the cost of economic viability. This will mean fostering innovation, providing financial incentives for secure alternatives, and coordinating policies to create an interoperable marketplace among trusted nations. Luckily, the United States has already set a precedent in the automotive industry for achieving this framework and has developed diplomatic channels to negotiate and implement the framework. Achieving allied scale with partners would increase the economic viability of a technology marketplace that excludes products from untrusted provenance.13
The alternative is unacceptable. A world in which adversarial states control key components of digital and cyber-physical infrastructure is a world where democratic nations cede their national sovereignty. To avoid this outcome, America must act first to build a multilateral challenge to PRC manufacturing dominance, but its chance of success is greater if it doesn’t act alone.
Jonathan Oldstyle is a federal employee with previous experience at the National Security Council, the Department of Defense, and on Wall Street.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not represent the official views or policies of the U.S. Government or any of its agencies.
Federal Communications Commission. "Covered List." Federal Communications Commission, n.d. FCC. Accessed January 7, 2026.↩︎
Office of the Federal Register. "15 CFR Part 791—Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain." Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, n.d. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. Accessed January 7, 2026.↩︎
White House. "U.S.-Japan Technology Prosperity Deal." White House Articles, October 2025. White House. Accessed January 7, 2026.↩︎
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U.S. Congress. House. Connected Vehicle National Security Review Act. H. R. 8741, 118th Cong., 2023–2024. U.S. Congress. Accessed January 7, 2026.↩︎
U.S. Congress. House. SAFE LiDAR Act. H.R. 6576, 119th Cong., 2025–2026. U.S. Congress. Accessed January 7, 2026.↩︎
U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. "FULL HEARING | Trojan Horse: China’s Auto Threat to America" YouTube video, 1:02:44. Posted June 2023. YouTube. Accessed January 7, 2026.↩︎
U.S. Government Publishing Office. "Critical and Emerging Technologies List Update" Govinfo, February 2024. U.S. Government Publishing Office. Accessed January 7, 2026.↩︎
U.S. Department of War, Chief Technology Officer. "Critical Technology Areas." U.S. Department of War, DoD CTO. Accessed January 7, 2026.↩︎
U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security. "2024 Technology Prioritization" Bureau of Industry and Security, 2024. Bureau of Industry and Security.↩︎
Doshi, Rush, and McCarthy, Kevin. "Underestimating China." Foreign Affairs, May/June 2025. Foreign Affairs.↩︎