ITIF

Imposing blanket tariffs on U.S. semiconductor imports would imperil U.S. leadership across a broad range of digital and nondigital industries while significantly decreasing U.S. economic growth, raising prices, and jeopardizing broader U.S. manufacturing competitiveness.

Canadian firms are underinvesting in productivity-enhancing capital such as machinery, software, and advanced technologies. Without targeted reforms to boost investment and improve data collection, Canada risks falling further behind in global competitiveness and economic growth.

President Trump has announced his intention to regulate U.S. drug prices. But the arguments in favor of doing so are wrong. Price controls reduce development of new treatments and cures, and hurt U.S. biopharmaceutical competitiveness.

In the Trump and China era, South Korea must move beyond export-led growth. Scaling up small firms and boosting productivity in services must be national imperatives.

Innovation-driven production is key to reclaiming U.S. dominance on the international stage. Yet, all but a few U.S. state economies are less concentrated in advanced industries than the world average—and only one is ahead of China.

EU policymakers frame their legislative and regulatory actions against U.S. tech companies as measures to promote competition and protect consumers. But they operate as protectionist trade barriers and revenue-generating mechanisms.

Globalization 1.0 has failed, but protectionist autarky cannot be its replacement. Instead, it is past time to craft a new kind of globalization that advances U.S. interests in key industries and prevents China from becoming the dominant techno-economic power.

The Canadian economy is shifting faster than its institutions are. This playbook lays out an agenda to address what Canada must fix, build, and scale in order to compete through technology.

Standard large nuclear reactors won’t achieve scale or cost competitiveness with alternative energy sources. DOE should focus its resources on small modular reactors, which are a more promising technology with the potential to achieve price and performance parity.

China’s industrial strategy calls for gaining market share in e-commerce to expand its global influence, financial footprint, and ability to compete in AI. Policymakers should act now to avoid leaving U.S. platforms at a structural disadvantage and exposing U.S. consumers to harm.

Rather than adopt the European Union’s model for regulating competition, policymakers considering how to govern digital markets should carefully evaluate whether digital antitrust regulation is justified and consider whether concerns about anticompetitive behavior can be addressed with less intrusive and more cost-effective tools.

Follow-on biopharmaceutical innovations deliver substantial health and economic benefits by improving the safety and efficacy of existing therapies, addressing unmet patient needs, expanding therapeutic applications, and enhancing adherence. Supportive policies are essential to sustain progress and ensure broad access to these medical advances.

As the Trump administration seeks to rebalance America’s trade relationships, it should focus the most attention on countries where U.S. industries face the worst trade distortions and imbalances, and where the greatest gains can be achieved for the U.S. economy. China, India, and the European Union top that list.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) undermines innovation in small-molecule drugs by subjecting them to price controls after 9 years, whereas large-molecule drugs (biologics) are allowed 13 years of market pricing. Congress should pass the bipartisan EPIC Act to remedy this issue.

Now updated for 2025–2026, ITIF’s Tech Policy To-Do List is a knowledge base of nearly 140 actionable policy ideas for Congress, the administration, and regulatory agencies to spur innovation, growth, and U.S. global competitiveness.

The U.S. government must adopt a clear-eyed view of China’s technology security strategy by recognizing China is temporarily lagging in some sectors, rapidly catching up in others, and already leading in many.

The Trump administration and Congress have a golden opportunity to put clean energy policy on a new, more viable track by adopting an innovation-based strategy to spur technologies that can compete with fossil fuels on both price and performance.

The administration should reform the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program to stop favoring overly expensive fiber when LEO satellites could do the same job for less. Taking a technology-neutral approach to broadband deployment would save money that could be better spent on other causes of the digital divide.

Congress should create a more targeted and durable Affordable Connectivity Program by aligning funding priorities with the remaining causes of the digital divide. By prioritizing affordability rather than deployment, the new program can connect low-income households without new federal spending.

AI has the potential to transform drug development by enhancing productivity across the entire development pipeline, boosting biopharmaceutical innovation, accelerating the delivery of new therapies, and fostering competition to help improve public health outcomes.

In its bid for tech sovereignty, the EU has been aggressively targeting U.S. firms and industries with unfair protectionist policies. This cannot stand. To move forward into a new era of deeper transatlantic trade integration, America must first demand a level playing field.

There may be no more important question for the West’s competitive position in advanced industries than whether China is becoming a rival innovator. While the evidence suggests it hasn’t yet taken the overall lead, it has pulled ahead in certain areas, and in many others Chinese firms will likely equal or surpass Western firms within a decade or so.

Some concerns are legitimate, but others are not. Some require immediate regulatory responses, but many do not. And a few require regulations addressing AI specifically, but most do not.