Speaking at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the Commerce Department’s budget, Lutnick said China is trying to copy the United States’ technology.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Thursday called for stricter enforcement of export restrictions on China to curb its advances in areas such as artificial intelligence and aviation.

Speaking at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the Commerce Department’s budget, Lutnick said China is trying to copy the United States’ technology, according to a Bloomberg report.

“In the race for AI supremacy, they are behind us, but they are working with the central government to get us, right, to beat us so that they will have intellectual superiority over us,” he said.

The Commerce Secretary also highlighted the Trump administration’s attempts to bring semiconductor manufacturing to the U.S., underscoring the efforts of companies like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSM) to build plants in the U.S.

Amid reports that TSMC was struggling to find enough talent to work in its semiconductor plants, Lutnick said skilling the workforce is a key goal of the administration.

“We’ll train 5 million Americans, these great jobs that are coming, just like that semiconductor plant in Arizona,” he said, referring to the TSMC facilities planned in Arizona.

Lutnick’s statements come when trade tensions between the U.S. and China have escalated over the past few weeks.

Earlier Thursday, President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had a one-on-one conversation, primarily on trade.

President Trump said the call was “very good” and that it resulted in a “very positive conclusion” for both the U.S. and China.

Meanwhile, U.S. markets traded marginally in the green by Thursday afternoon. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which represents the S&P 500 index, was up 0.16% at the time of writing.

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