At the end of the 20th century, the United States was the world’s uncontested technological leader. Now, a quarter of the way into the 21st, we’ve fallen behind. China leads us in 37 of the 44 critical technologies that’ll define the coming decades.
Our economic prosperity and national security depend on regaining the lead. To do that, we need a new American innovation policy focused on empowering the kind of startups and small businesses that lead the nation in breakthrough innovation. Donald Trump and JD Vance are best positioned to deliver these reforms. Vance’s venture capital background makes him intimately familiar with the challenges that startups face.
If she becomes the next president, Vice President Kamala Harris would continue the Biden administration’s hostility towards innovators and emerging technologies. The Biden-Harris administration has been choking blockchain and crypto technologies, with the Securities and Exchange Commission filing crippling suits against leading companies in this emerging industry.
This administration has also been hostile to artificial intelligence, with an overbearing executive order—by some accounts the longest in history—full of stifling regulations that only a handful of the largest companies could survive.
In biotech, the Biden-Harris administration agreed at the World Trade Organization that countries can void patent protections on the mRNA technology behind the COVID-19 vaccines, essentially inviting China and other hostile nations to appropriate our intellectual property. That technology was developed by American biotech startups—and has applications well beyond the pandemic.
In 2022, for the first time, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued more patents to foreign inventors than American ones. From 2020 to 2022, Chinese inventors received four times more global artificial intelligence patents than those from the United States. China also holds the world’s highest number of 6G patents globally.
Our ability to manufacture cutting-edge technologies fares no better. Although we invented silicon technology, we now only produce around 10% of chips used globally in products ranging from cell phones and automobiles to pacemakers and refrigerators. The majority of manufacturers producing active pharmaceutical ingredients, the key chemical compounds in our medicines, are outside the United States. And China manufactures over 75% of lithium-ion batteries needed for electric vehicles, cell phones, solar power, and so much more.
The result is a remarkable decline in American innovation and economic competitiveness. These trends must be reversed immediately, lest we become forever dependent upon China and other foreign nations. Industry, academia, and government must work together to turbo-charge our startups and small businesses and revitalize our innovation economy.
Focusing on “the little guy” is critical because this is where truly novel, disruptive innovation takes place. Edison invented the light bulb in his small workshop in New Jersey. The Wright Brothers invented the airplane in their family bicycle shop in Ohio. Ford, Apple, Amgen, and so many other market disruptors began in the proverbial garage.
The importance of small business cannot be overstated. Firms with 5 to nine employees receive about 60% more patents per capita than corporations with more than 25,000 workers. Startups and small businesses also account for almost half of all U.S. jobs and almost two-thirds of net new jobs created since 1995.
President Trump understands this. The 2024 Republican platform is dedicated to the “forgotten men and women of America” and is full of policies for small companies and working people.
The Trump platform is committed to “championing innovation,” expressly pledging to reverse the Biden-Harris hostility to crypto and AI. It promises to make America a “manufacturing superpower” and “slash regulations that stifle jobs, freedom, innovation”—all of which will benefit American startups and small-but-growing companies.
JD Vance truly understands the problems facing startups and has already worked to address them. Recognizing that 70% of venture capital dollars go to California, New York and Massachusetts, Vance worked closely with Steve Case, the founder of AOL, to create and lead the Rise of the Rest venture fund that is expressly dedicated to funding entrepreneurs in the other 47 states.
Innovation is similarly concentrated. More than 50% of U.S. patents are issued to inventors in just five states. America cannot compete if vast swaths of the country do not participate in the innovation economy. A Trump administration focused on our “forgotten” communities can change this trajectory.
The Small Business Administration—the one federal agency dedicated to small businesses—can again lead the national discourse and advocate for investment in new, innovative companies in every state. Under a second Trump administration, the palpable optimism of small businesses is likely to return. I believe the SBA will be able to focus on its core mission and modernize its own processes, slash red tape, and expand access to its Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs.
As in the first Trump administration, the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), responsible for technological standards in the United States and protecting innovation in universities and federal laboratories, will ensure that American technology has a chance to be adopted as international standards, as opposed to allowing China to dominate standard-setting. NIST will also, once again, incentivize and protect the transfer of technology from academia to industry (usually startups) a veritable wealth of innovation that is under unprecedented attack in the Biden-Harris administration, which has threatened to nationalize all that innovation for the first time in history.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would be able to focus once again on policies that simplify the patent system and ensure it is aimed at turbo-charging innovation. And it will again be able to lead a national dialogue that is focused on the brilliance of inventors, the excitement of invention, and the incredible benefits they bring to society.
In the first Trump administration, when I was director of the USPTO, we started the National Council for Expanding American Innovation, a group of industry, academic, and government leaders tasked with helping the USPTO develop a comprehensive national strategy to broaden participation in the innovation economy to all American communities. The Council began its work in 2020 during Covid, and under a new Trump administration, it could be reinvigorated and refocused to provide concrete and practical solutions.
Americans have always possessed an innovative, entrepreneurial spirit. In August 1787, in the midst of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, John Fitch demonstrated his new steamboat on the Delaware River. Most delegates took a break to go observe the novelty of a working steam engine. Innovation was important to the Founding Fathers—and it remains just as critical today.
The United States needs policy reforms that enable entrepreneurs and small businesses to achieve their potential. It’s time to make America competitive again.
More must-read commentary published by Fortune:
- Former Intel CEO Craig Barrett: Splitting up America’s leading chipmaker is a bad idea
- We led some of America’s largest companies. Here’s why we are voting for Harris, not Trump
- How the Democrat-leaning news media is unwittingly aiding Trump
- As activist Starboard engages constructively, here’s a potent prescription for Pfizer’s future success under Dr. Bourla’s watch
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
