Exclusive: Senator Cotton delays vote on Biden's pick for powerful China
job at Commerce
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[October 15, 2021]
By Alexandra Alper and Karen Freifeld
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Senator
Tom Cotton is holding up a vote to confirm Alan Estevez as the U.S.
Commerce Department's undersecretary for industry and security until he
gets answers to difficult questions about technology exports to China.
In a letter dated Oct. 14 and seen by Reuters, Cotton asks Estevez to
commit to strengthening U.S. restrictions on exporting semiconductor
software and technology to China and to accelerating the roll-out of new
rules to tighten export controls for advanced technologies.
The letter, also signed by Republican senator Bill Hagerty, asks Estevez
to consider extending a Trump administration rule - that currently only
applies to Huawei - to blacklisted Chinese firms with links to the
military or human rights violations. That rule further restricted access
for the Chinese telecoms giant to advanced semiconductor chips.
The job at the Commerce Department oversees exports to all countries but
decisions over cutting-edge technology exports to China have given the
position tremendous power over Chinese companies dependent on U.S.
technology in recent years.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2021/Oct/15/images/ads/current/safety-tip-daily-1.png)
The Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Many industry watchers saw the choice of Estevez, a former Defense
Department official with a limited track record on China, as a safe bet.
But Cotton - or any other senator - can hold up a fast-track
confirmation process that requires consent by all 100 senators.
Since the Republican has not had the chance to question the nominee, he
is pausing the confirmation process until he receives answers to the
questions posed in the letter, a Cotton staffer said.
Republicans are not the only ones holding up Estevez's nomination.
Democratic Senator Bob Menendez came out against Estevez when the Senate
Banking Committee took up his confirmation and also opposes expediting a
final full Senate vote.
His opposition stems from the former Pentagon official's response to
questions regarding returning oversight of U.S. firearms exports to the
State Department.
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![](../images/101521pics/news_r23.jpg)
Senator Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas., speaks during a Senate Judiciary
Committee hearing in Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, U.S.,
September 29, 2021. Tom Williams/Pool via REUTERS/Files
![](../images/ads/current/centraldirect_lda_SPONSOR_2021.png)
"I was not satisfied with Mr. Estevez's non-answers
as to whether the Biden administration was planning to fulfill
President Biden's campaign promise and finally reverse the Trump
administration's dangerous stripping of oversight authority of U.S.
firearm sales from the State Department's Munitions List to the
Commerce Department," Menendez said in a statement.
The Trump administration transferred jurisdiction on exports of
semiautomatic pistols, assault rifles and related firearms from
State to the less-restrictive Commerce Control List, which also
eliminated congressional review for such sales.
Estevez will be in good company. Other Biden nominees are being held
up by Senator Ted Cruz, who is using the process to halt a
Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline, White House officials and Democrats
in Congress say.
Estevez testified last month before the Senate banking committee,
which later voted in favor of advancing his bid to the full Senate.
During the hearing and under questioning from Hagerty, Estevez said
he expected to keep Huawei on a blacklist unless "things change" and
pledged to "look at" Honor, a former unit of Huawei, to see whether
the Chinese telecoms giant was using the spun-off company to
minimize or circumvent its own blacklist designation. Republican
senators have called on the Biden administration to blacklist Honor.
In the letter on Thursday, the senators also asked for Estevez to
say whether he thought the global spread of Huawei Cloud Services
posed a data security and privacy concern for the United States, and
whether Honor should be placed on the Commerce Department's trade
blacklist.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2021/Oct/15/images/ads/current/culligan_sda_SFARM_2021.png)
(Reporting by Karen Freifeld and Alexandra Alper, Editing by Rosalba
O'Brien)
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