Lawmakers Push to Include Outbound Investment Restrictions in Final NDAA
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., are working together to ensure that their bill to restrict U.S. outbound investment in China clears its last major hurdle in Congress, Cornyn said late Oct. 22.
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Cornyn and Barr introduced the Foreign Investment Guardrails to Help Thwart China Act, or Fight China Act, in their respective chambers, and the legislation was added to the Senate-passed version of the FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) but not the House-passed version (see 2510100015). The lawmakers are trying to have their proposal included in the final version of the NDAA that will be crafted in the coming weeks.
“It's overwhelmingly supported here [in the Senate], but we're navigating the usual jurisdictional issues in the House,” Cornyn said in a hallway interview at the Capitol. “But [it] sounds like we got a good plan, and I'm optimistic.”
The Fight China Act would codify the Treasury Department’s new outbound investment program by prohibiting U.S. investment in certain sensitive technologies in China and creating a notification regime to increase transparency on certain unprohibited investments. It also would authorize the president to sanction entities connected to China’s military and intelligence apparatus.
Lawmakers will have to decide whether to include a host of other measures in the final NDAA as well, including Senate-passed amendments that would repeal a 2019 Syria sanctions law, codify certain Western Balkan sanctions and require U.S. manufacturers of advanced AI chips to make their products available to American firms before selling them to China (see 2510210004, 2411200030 and 2509240062).