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Washington, D.C. – Yesterday, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul participated in a panel at the Milken Institute Global Conference entitled “China and the United States: Navigating Strategic Competition.” 

WATCH HERE. 

On the CHIPS for America Act: 

“Well, I introduced the CHIPS for America Act just based upon this offshoring of this critical national security asset… The idea was to pull that supply chain as much as we could, out of say, Taiwan, which has 90 percent of the advanced semiconductor manufacturing, and make it either in the United States or allied countries.

“As we see the aggression coming from Communist China, the clock is ticking on this. It takes about two years to build these FAB plants, but I will say, since we got the bill passed and it was bipartisan, Samsung [has made] a two hundred-billion-dollar investment, Intel, huge expansion in Ohio, Micron in New York. And that’s where we need to be because otherwise, an invasion of [Taiwan] with 90 percent of the advanced semiconductor capability, I don’t have to explain to you what that means.”

On the CCP’s Response to President Tsai’s U.S. Visit and the Chairman’s Delegation Trip to Taiwan:

“I came back from Taiwan two weeks ago, and we were met with an email from the embassy warning us not to travel, which was followed by an armada of battleships surrounding the island and about 90 fighter jets. It was a sign of bravado — an attempt to intimidate us… he’s war gaming the Taiwanese — [Chairman Xi is] trying to figure out their vulnerabilities, weaknesses, so it gave him the opportunity to see what Taiwan was capable of.”

On Taiwan’s Defense Capabilities and the Importance of Establishing Deterrence Against Xi:

“I want to talk about the weapons, because I sign off on all foreign military weapons sales — three to five years ago [I signed off on weapons sales for Taiwan] that [some] have yet to go into country. President Tsai says to me, ‘where are my weapons? I need my weapons.’ And she says, ‘I need a Starlink communications satellite system so that if [China] cuts the embassy cable and tries to shut down the island, I’ve got resiliency.’ And then the last piece is ISR — China dominates in the Pacific and Taiwan has [no ISR capabilities]. I think Michelle is correct — [the U.S.] must start doing these things incrementally to show Xi that the price is going to be too high, not just militarily but economically, as well.”

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