Former Official: Bill to Prioritize US Buyers for Chip Sales Is ‘Common Sense’
A bill that would require U.S. manufacturers of advanced AI chips to make their products available to American firms before selling them to China “is pretty common sense,” said Daniel Remler, a former State Department official.
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Speaking during a Hudson Institute event last week week on AI, Remler noted that the Gain AI Act would essentially give U.S. buyers the “right of first refusal” for sales of America’s most advanced semiconductors. The bill was included in the Senate-passed FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (see 2510100015) and was backed last month by a group of former U.S. national security officials (see 2510310034). It would give U.S. companies the first opportunity to buy those chips before they can be sold to nations in the D:5 category of the Export Administration Regulations, which includes China and other countries subject to a U.S. arms embargo.
“It basically operates from the principle of, shouldn't American companies have the chance to purchase some of our most exquisite technology before we give that technology or sell it to our primary strategic adversary?” said Remler, who left his role in September as a policy adviser in the Office of the Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technology to join the Center for a New American Security. “That seems pretty common sense to me.”
Some chip companies and trade groups, including Nvidia and the Semiconductor Industry Association, have opposed the bill. SIA said it would introduce complex requirements that would be “impossible to comply with,” partly because it would put in place a presumption of denial license review policy for certain chip exports if an exporter is unable to certify that there's no demand by any U.S. person for that chip or that there will be no disruptions to supply (see 2509080065).
But Remler said the U.S. is operating in a “zero-sum world” in its chip and AI competition with China, “where a chip manufactured for export to China means one less chip manufactured that could go to an American buyer” or U.S. ally. “To me, that kind of America-first, shall we say, principle for making sure that American companies have a right of first refusal for chips before they go to China makes a lot of sense.”