What’s behind Kamala Harris’ claim that Donald Trump sold chips to China?

During the 2024 Presidential debates, Kamala Harris accused former president Donald Trump of selling semiconductor chips to China, thus giving them a military boost. But how accurate are these claims and what do they really mean?

“The Trump administration resulted in a trade deficit, one of the highest we have ever seen in the history of America,” Harris said during Tuesday’s debate. “He invited trade wars. You want to talk about his deal with China, and what he ended up doing under Donald Trump’s presidency. He ended up selling American chips to China to help them improve and modernize their military.”

So, did Trump do this? Most likely, but it’s not exclusive to him. The United States regularly exports not just chips, but other tech manufacturing products to China. As Fortune writes:

While the Biden administration has expanded controls on the export of critical technologies to China since 2022, experts note that Trump started that trend back in 2019, when his administration banned sales to companies such as the Chinese smartphone maker Huawei. What the vice president was likely referencing were the loopholes in the Trump administration’s blacklist of products, like limited restrictions on advanced chips and waivers for American companies looking to grow market share abroad.

We do substantial trade with China regardless of who the sitting president is. But, as Harris points out, Trump was being hypocritical here, as he pushed tough-on-China rhetoric during the debates while seemingly allowing a lot of trade with China to continue anyway.

China imports semiconductor chips from around the world, much of which comes from a lot of American allies. According to Reuters, the U.S. government is attempting to impose harsh restrictions on semiconductor exports from some allied countries. However, countries like South Korea, Japan, and the Netherlands, are exempted from this policy, meaning that a lot of chips are still going to be exported to China.

Trump is both a fascist and a businessman, so he will say one thing and then do another, as long as it benefits both his bottom line and position of power. He is the ultimate enemy here, let’s be perfectly clear, and must be stopped this upcoming election by Harris’ administration.

With that being said, it’s distressing to hear Harris using rhetoric that draws directly from racist Orientalist perceptions of China as a big bogeyman to world peace. It’s one thing to call Trump out on hypocrisy, but it’s another to play directly into yellow peril fears about China, which foment anti-Asian racism both abroad and at home.

I am both hopeful and worried about the future of the Democratic Party if the strategy here is to both attack fascism and play a little too dangerously with some of the rhetoric used by nationalists. Here’s hoping these strategies play out differently at some point.