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‘We’re in a competition with China’: Sen. Cornyn holds semiconductor shortage roundtable in Dallas

Cornyn’s CHIPS for America Act will bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the U.S.

Updated at 9:50 a.m. Friday to include a correction of the spelling of Qorvo, a semiconductor company.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn met with North Texas businesses Thursday to discuss how they have been affected by the semiconductor shortage — and how to overcome the problem long-term.

Cornyn discussed difficulties faced by such companies as General Motors, Toyota, Raytheon, and Qorvo since last year, when the semiconductor shortage began, during the meeting at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas. He introduced a bill last year that would bring back semiconductor production to the U.S.

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The CHIPS for America Act will encourage semiconductor research and manufacturing after the COVID-19 pandemic caused global shutdowns, silicon shortages and increased demand for electronics which all contributed to a crisis-level shortage in the tiny computer chip.

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Cornyn’s bill passed last Congress as part of the National Defense Authorization Act and was enacted starting in January. This month, the Senate is expected to vote on funding for programs created in the bill.

“Just because something’s cheaper when it’s being made overseas doesn’t really answer all the questions we have, particularly when it becomes a matter of national security or survival of our economy. We’re in a competition with China,” Cornyn said at a press conference Thursday.

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The U.S. is already falling behind China, which is building 17 new semiconductor manufacturing plants, Cornyn said.

The Texas senator, a Republican, previously met with President Joe Biden in February, along with Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to discuss the shortage. McCaul called the meeting “a very substantive discussion about critical supply chain,” at the time.

As the pandemic shocked the country in the beginning of 2020, it revealed weaknesses in the supply chain, where personal protective equipment and other items were unavailable.

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Cornyn argued it is also a national security issue.

“If we’re going to maintain our national security, if we’re going to maintain our vibrant economy, if we’re going to compete in a very competitive world, we were going to need to make some strategic investments in things like semiconductor technology and manufacturing,” Cornyn said.

A weak supply chain is a bipartisan problem, Cornyn said. His bill was co-sponsored by five Democrats, including Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., who he partnered up with on border legislation in April.

Cornyn said Biden was “all in,” after their meeting in February.

“We all understand this is important,” Cornyn said at the time. “Not only to our economy, but to our national security, because these cutting edge, high-end semiconductors – they operate on everything from the F-35 fifth-generation stealth fighter to our cell phones. So it was very positive.”

Cornyn led a bipartisan group of more than 70 senators in a letter to Biden in April asking him to “prioritize” the funding set aside by the CHIPS for America Act.

“The United States cannot wait to provide these resources over the years ahead,” the senators said in the letter. “The halted production lines for consumer technology, auto manufacturers, truckers, and other critical industries due to a semiconductor shortage further highlights the pressing need to act quickly and fund the enacted bipartisan provisions.”