The Trump administration is searching for a legal way to impose tariffs to combat unfair foreign trade practices. After the Supreme Court slapped down Trump’s initial round of tariffs, it’s unclear whether this second attempt will meet legal muster and accomplish the administration’s objectives.
There is a better way. The administration already has access to a trade tool far better suited to the problem America faces today: foreign factories using American technology to produce goods to ship into the United States.
Congress gave the International Trade Commission the power to exclude products made in foreign factories using patented American manufacturing processes.
Unlike a tariff, this remedy directly targets products made through the unauthorized use of American technology — and can deny those products access to the American market. That gives the president powerful negotiating leverage with foreign governments.
I created the nonprofit organization Pioneering AI Foundation to give this administration access to my pioneering AI intellectual property as a trade tool, at no cost to American taxpayers. My pending AI manufacturing patents cover the use of artificial intelligence to control and optimize factory production processes. Once issued, these patents could be enforced at the ITC to advance American technological leadership.
China boasts that more than 40,000 smart factories now run on this same AI manufacturing technology. An ITC exclusion order could therefore reach millions of imported products made using my AI manufacturing technology, from electronics to home appliances, automobiles, computers, and other manufactured goods.
China’s use of my technology is part of a much broader pattern.
The Senate Judiciary Committee estimates China steals between $400 billion and $600 billion of intellectual property per year, or about $5,000 per taxpayer. As a solution to this issue, my AI manufacturing patents would offer the administration a concrete tool for confronting foreign stolen intellectual property, as well as the products built from that intelligence. That is the leverage.
Any country that depends on access to American markets would face a simple choice: work with the United States on fair trade practices, or goods made with stolen American technology will be turned away at the border. Tariffs merely increase the cost of production, but a single ITC exclusion order can stop many different types of products manufactured with American technology.
No tariff delivers pressure that targeted.
But there is a critical gap: The ITC, or any trade authority for that matter, lacks the power to condition access to the American market on compliance with American laws and executive orders. While the administration’s recent trade measures target forced labor abroad, they cannot generally require that imported goods be produced in accordance with American protections against forced and child labor, environmental standards, or other rules that help level the playing field for American companies.
The Pioneering AI Foundation can fill that gap by conditioning access to pioneering American AI technology on compliance with those same standards, creating a powerful new tool to combat unethical trade practices.
Trump has vowed that the U.S. will do “whatever it takes to lead the world in artificial intelligence.” Here is a way to turn that lead into leverage — while protecting American innovation, advancing fair trade, and defending human rights, without asking taxpayers to foot the bill.
THE WHITE HOUSE GAVE BIG TECH AN AI CHEAT SHEET — AND LEFT EVERYONE ELSE IN THE DARK
The pieces are already in place. Congress wrote the laws. The ITC has the authority. China has planted American AI manufacturing technology in tens of thousands of factories. And the Pioneering AI Foundation gives the administration a way to turn that into leverage.
The president is trying another tariff. He already has a stronger negotiating card: the power to stop unfair trade by closing the American market to foreign products made with patented American technology.
Gilbert Hyatt is an American scientist, engineer, and inventor living in Nevada, best known for his pioneering work in microcomputer technology.