By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

How Profit Seeking Distorts American Policymaking

Until recently, few policy tools united Democrats and Republicans like export controls. Restrictions on the spread of dual-use U.S. technology, such as semiconductors, became the policy of choice in the tech race against China and as a means of punishing Russia for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In the wrong hands, semiconductors and certain other U.S. technologies can present national security risks. Politicians might have debated the details, but there was broad bipartisan agreement that the U.S. government should regulate the movement of these technologies.

The Trump administration has also embraced the use of export controls—but it has added a twist. In August, the administration brokered a revenue-sharing deal with Nvidia, a U.S. company that designs semiconductor chips used to power artificial intelligence. In exchange for export control licenses to sell its H20 chip to China, the company will now give 15 percent of its revenue from those sales to the U.S. government. Previously, the U.S. government reviewed license applications to ensure transactions did not present unacceptable risks. This time, the administration replaced that process with a price tag, prioritizing side payments to the government over security interests.

Although Beijing banned Chinese companies from buying Nvidia’s chips last week, after accusing the company of violating antimonopoly laws, the Trump administration’s deal is part of a worrying trend: the monetization of national security. Instead of treating security as an indivisible, priceless ideal—similar to free and fair elections, free speech, or freedom of religion—the administration is treating U.S. national security as if it were a portfolio of divisible, priceable assets. What once was security is now securities. Worse, the prices appear to be negotiable: the president revealed in a press conference that the administration had sought a 20 percent cut of Nvidia’s sales but settled for 15.

Reducing national security to dollars and cents does not just distort the term’s meaning; it also makes the United States less secure. Replacing licenses with revenue-sharing deals, making certain types of direct investments, and squeezing U.S. allies and partners may all help fill U.S. government coffers. But policies designed to maximize short-term gain can create new security problems and leave the old ones unsolved. They will enable U.S. technology to more easily reach American adversaries, cost the U.S. government oversight over taxpayer money, and sacrifice Washington’s ability to shape the world around it.

Avoiding these dangers and reducing the U.S. economy’s exposure to risk requires a careful, farsighted strategy that recognizes the reality of the United States’ place in today’s world. True economic security will remain out of reach as long as the government is run as a business, its policy levers and relationships priced, bundled, and repriced, available to be bought and sold.

 

Getting to Agreement

Economic concerns were fundamental to national security when the term was first introduced in national debate, about a century ago. As the historians Peter Roady and Andrew Preston have recently documented, during his 1932 election campaign and following presidential term, Franklin Roosevelt deliberately defined the phrase to capture risks to domestic economic well-being. In his second fireside chat in 1933, Roosevelt argued that economic struggle led to “incalculable” social harm and a “loss of that sense of security.” A new domestic economic program was “imperative to our national security,” he declared, later summarizing, “Freedom from fear is eternally linked with freedom from want.”

Roosevelt’s original interpretation of national security later gave way to a more militarized, more expansive conception, reinforced by the interests of a growing arms industry and the rise of the modern military-industrial complex. It came to encompass every corner of the world. This focus on military and ideological competition reigned supreme into the early years of the twenty-first century, even as Washington began paying greater attention to the financial tools it could use to contain threats from terrorist groups and rogue states after the 9/11 attacks.

In the 2010s and early 2020s, Roosevelt’s vision of the economic and domestic dimensions of national security made a bipartisan comeback. The second line of the Obama administration’s 2015 National Security Strategy affirmed that “America’s growing economic strength is the foundation of our national security.” In his first term, Trump championed the same idea. “For the first time,” he remarked on releasing his 2017 National Security Strategy, “American strategy recognizes that economic security is national security.”

Four years later, President Joe Biden’s 2021 interim national security guidance repeated the same mantra: “Economic security is national security.” Biden’s Department of Commerce played a greater role in national security policy than anyone in government could remember, not just with export controls but also in work on supply chains, cybersecurity, information and communication technology, climate change, investment security, law enforcement, commercial diplomacy, standards development, patents, domestic investment, and even commercial space policy. There was substantial bipartisan alignment on many of these issues. Republicans were especially supportive of the department’s export control policies, and in late 2023, Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis proposed establishing a federal office of economic security and competition—with a mandate similar to that of new offices the Biden administration had created earlier that year, including the Commerce Department’s Supply Chain Center and the Office of Economic Security and Emerging Technology, part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

It is not simply that economic, technology, and trade policy became more appealing arrows in the national security quiver. That did happen. But more significantly, on a philosophical level, leading Democrats and Republicans agreed that security itself meant much more than an absence of physical attack. It also meant reducing economic struggle and risk. They saw economic security as a domestic issue as much as an international one. The erosion of strategic U.S. industries and the loss of technological leadership, for instance, could leave the United States vulnerable to foreign actors who might weaponize trade dependencies. The supply chain disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic showed just how easily the country could lose access to critical goods. The first Trump administration’s relentless focus on manufacturing domestically to rely less on others and its concern that Huawei and TikTok could give the Chinese government access to American data, furthermore, continued into the Biden administration. With notable exceptions, such as export controls, Democratic and Republican policy solutions were not always the same, but everyone largely agreed on what the problem was.

 

Everything Has a Price

The second Trump administration is challenging this consensus. Traditionally, national security has been about reducing threats; now, the administration seeks to profit from them, ostensibly in the eventual hope of cutting taxes for the public benefit. The H20 chip deal with Nvidia is one way it has done this, by allowing a company whose business with China presents a national security threat to buy off that risk. Trump has said that H20 chips are “obsolete” products that China “already has,” suggesting that selling them presents no risk to the United States. The point is moot in this case if Beijing keeps a ban on Nvidia’s chips in place. But in principle, a riskless export control license is an oxymoron; licenses are required only when the government has identified a risk. It did so for the H20 chip just a few months ago, in April. This is the reason paying for export control licenses is prohibited under U.S. law (Title 50 of the U.S. Code), to prevent a situation in which financial gain takes precedence over national security concerns. When export controls are about money rather than security standards, U.S. technology will easily reach malign actors.

Possible legal complications, however, have not stopped the Trump administration from pursuing this kind of arrangement. It has already reached a deal with another technology company, AMD, to give the U.S. government 15 percent of its revenue from selling its MI308 processors in China—something Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (whose department does not oversee dual-use export controls) called a “beta test.”

The administration could continue to replicate this model, and not just in export control cases. It could, for example, try to generate cash for the federal government by accepting payment in exchange for the approval of foreign direct investment in U.S. companies, wiping away potential national security concerns for the right price. If an investment presents any kind of concern, such as data security, however, pretending the problem does not exist because someone has agreed to pay the government is not a real solution. And left unresolved, a national security problem will only fester.

The monetization of national security has not been limited to revenue-sharing deals. The administration is also exploring direct investment in U.S. companies. Most notably, the government announced in August that it was purchasing a ten percent stake (roughly $8.9 billion) in Intel, the United States’ largest semiconductor manufacturer. Unlike revenue-sharing deals, direct investment is unusual but not unprecedented. There can be legitimate reasons for the government to invest in a company that is critical to national security and needs help. For instance, a struggling company that faces closure or a foreign takeover might need both cash and strategic guidance. Or a startup that is not yet generating revenue may need public investment when private capital is not an option. But making money should not be the primary goal—a single company’s payouts to the government should not be prioritized above nationwide security interests.

The Intel deal illustrates this risk. Federal money was already promised to Intel through grants from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act; this money came with protections attached to ensure it was used to advance the public interest. The largest grant supported manufacturing projects in Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio, and Oregon, and the company was obligated to report on project milestones and follow national security guardrails that, among other things, limited its activities with foreign countries of concern. Also embedded in the grant program was a provision to return money to taxpayers in the case of unanticipated profits, called “upside sharing.”

But instead of continuing to disburse grant money and keeping these protections in place, the U.S. government opted for equity. This meant more cash up front for Intel and potentially more future revenue for the federal government, but—critically—a significant loss of oversight of taxpayer dollars. Intel may decide to use those dollars in ways that support national security interests. Or it may not.

Finally, the administration has monetized national security through its approach to U.S. military support and foreign aid, helping others if it brings a financial return. “Taiwan should pay us for defense,” the then-candidate Trump said in 2024. “You know, we’re no different than an insurance company.” Shortly after Trump’s election, Taiwan pledged to increase its spending on U.S. weapons; in the early months of his presidency, Trump’s frequent complaints about allied free-riding pressured others to do the same. The administration followed a similar mercenary logic in pursuing a critical minerals deal with Ukraine in exchange for Washington’s continued support for Kyiv’s war effort and in canceling U.S. foreign aid across the globe. To replace a “charity-based model” of development assistance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in July, the administration would instead seek investment opportunities that produce “a multiplier effect” that benefits the private sector.

Yet likening aid to an insurance policy or a market venture misses the greatest strategic value of supporting others. Take development aid. Aside from the compelling morality of alleviating human suffering, this aid can provide a bulwark against foreign manipulation, the emergence of terrorist havens, the growth of black markets, and other security threats that arise from chronic underdevelopment and economic struggle. Those interests, like so many others—nuclear nonproliferation, maintaining robust alliances, supporting democracy—have little to do with immediate financial returns.

To call the Trump administration’s approach to national security transactionalism misses the bigger point. Transactionalism assumes an exchange, tit for tat. But the administration instead is trading an intangible for a tangible: security interests for cold, hard cash. In doing so, it betrays a fundamentally different view of what national security is—one that suggests security can be priced at all.

 

First Principles

At best, the administration’s pursuit of profit distracts Washington from solving national security concerns; at worst, it deepens those threats. Monetization can even create new vulnerabilities and sources of insecurity by incentivizing affluent players to join the game. Take, for instance, Qatar’s gift of a gleaming $400 million airplane to transport the U.S. president. In the administration’s eagerness to accept a golden egg, it has created a golden espionage opportunity by inviting foreign surveillance.

The core problem with monetizing national security interests is that it contradicts the basic principles of economic security. This subset of national security includes protecting the U.S. economy, critical infrastructure, and American well-being; building national resilience to disruptions; and generally ensuring the safe and stable flourishing of American society. Truly advancing economic security requires that policymakers navigate tradeoffs, recognize that other countries hold leverage, engage partners, and play the long game.

Maintaining a bird’s-eye view of tradeoffs and tensions in economic security policy is essential to making wise decisions. Economic actions taken on behalf of national security, such as export controls, could have the unintended effect of limiting economic growth and innovation. Likewise, some actions taken in the pursuit of economic growth and innovation, such as export promotion and scientific collaboration, may undermine national security if those exports and research products are used to threaten Americans. The pitfall to avoid is creating new sources of insecurity or areas of misunderstanding. An action to resolve one risk should not create an even greater risk. For instance, the Trump administration’s early approach to tariffs—massive, punitive, and blunt—roiled the market and created economic uncertainty that even the president could not stomach. More narrowly targeted trade arrangements would help minimize adverse effects on American consumers, producers, and investors. They would also ensure the clarity, transparency, and predictability that CEOs and U.S. allies and partners crave.

Successful economic security policies also appreciate balance-of-power politics. The United States does not exist in a unipolar world, controlling supply chains and economic chokepoints. The more it acts as if it does, such as through coercive tariffs, the more other countries will balance against it. Frustrations with U.S. tariff policies have already breathed new life into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an economic and security body that encompasses more than 40 percent of the world’s population and aspires to be a strategic counterweight to the United States’ presence in Asia. More balancing may follow suit.

A smarter approach would engage partners. This is not just about doing good; it is strategic. Building trusted supply chains, protecting data, and executing export controls, for instance, all rely on coordination with international partners and, perhaps more important, with industry. Without coordination, rules are weaker, evasion is easier, and law enforcement is harder. True cooperation is not a slipshod, made-for-TV deal. It is accomplished through regular, deliberative bureaucratic conversations and adherence to process. By genuinely seeking input from its partners, the United States can avoid the kind of harmful backlash to its policies that ultimately undermines U.S. influence.

Finally, policymakers must recognize that economic security is a long game. Economic tools such as export promotion to build trusted supply chains tend to take years to work. Yet many national security professionals mistakenly assume that they will see the same immediate results as decisive military action. This rarely happens; it is always easier to destroy than it is to build. Economic policy has the most to offer over the long term, in its potential to transform societies. This is what makes development aid—which the Trump administration has slashed as a supposed cost-saving measure—so valuable. Development, of course, cannot happen overnight. And it is not always clear what problem—or malign actor—the aid is warding off. But helping to build a healthier and more prosperous world reduces the chances of many bad outcomes.

The United States’ security challenges are becoming only more complex, and policymakers are still figuring out how best to address them using the economic tools at their disposal. Yet one guiding principle is clear: a democratic government does not exist to enrich itself. National security policy, therefore, should not seek profits or involve opportunistic bonus payments. The U.S. government’s national security responsibility is to ensure national security. That is it.

 

 

For updates click hompage here