As the U.S. government decided to restrict some technologies to China, it should have been more serious about these restrictions. But due to a somewhat permissive licensing policy maintained by the U.S. Department of Commerce, due to the Chinese firms being able to smuggle or buy these technologies on the black market, due to the fierce resilience of companies like Huawei that refused to fail, and due to the very extensive lobbying efforts of American companies to continue to supply to Chinese customers, the export control policy was severely weakened.

I never really thought about the black market. If each country has a different tariff depending on their relationship to this administration, then a country that doesn’t comply can still get what they need from the US through other countries. Really best of both worlds.

It doesn’t make sense to turn off the U.S. as an attractor to some of the scientists yearning for some aspect of freedom, and it doesn’t make sense to deport a lot of people who could form the manufacturing industrial base in the U.S.

I never understood why the US would educate people and then try to kick them out in a short time frame. You are basically making other countries better and gaining little from it.