America wants to wean itself off Chinese technology. Will the pain pay off?

Seven years after founding a robotics startup in San Francisco, Rajat Bhageria is confronting a daunting new task: building robots without any help from China.

Like most US-based robotics firms, Chef Robotics has come to rely heavily on Chinese components to make the robot arms it sells to food manufacturers to automate the assembly of ready-made meals. China’s ability to churn out cheap parts at incomparable volumes has made it an integral source of competitive tech products around the world.

But as China has begun to dominate advanced industries from electric vehicles to automated factories , an increasingly protectionist US under President Donald Trump has ratcheted up restrictions on domestic use of Chinese technology, including drones, mobile robots and other critical electronics.

“For a while of course, it was like, ‘Hey, let’s find the best components, and let’s find them at the cheapest price,’” Bhageria said.

Now investors and customers have begun asking him a different question: “Why are you still using foreign-made parts?”

The intensifying rivalry between the US and China has deepened concerns about the national security risks that come with over-dependence on Chinese systems and supply chains.

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In banning foreign-made technologies, US officials cite the need to protect sensitive consumer and government data, while incentivizing domestic manufacturing. But experts warn the curbs may be having an unintended effect: hindering American companies’ ability to keep up with their Chinese rivals.

Decades of outsourcing have left American manufacturers ill-equipped to meet demand, leading to higher costs and longer wait times for companies, universities and consumers that require both cutting-edge and everyday electronics.

“A lot of our digital lives are built on the infrastructure of foreign-made components and goods assembled abroad, and that’s not going to change anytime soon,” said Ben Armstrong, executive director of MIT’s Industrial Performance Center, who researches manufacturing competitiveness and automation.

“We just don’t know how to make them in the US. So, there will be a learning curve, and during that learning curve process, the price will be high,” he said.

Bhageria hopes that by starting his search for alternative suppliers now, his company can mitigate potential economic pain down the line.

He has that luxury, because the components in his robotic arms are not yet affected by the bans. But he’s worried the list will grow. “You can imagine what’s the next shoe to drop, right? Like, the next thing might be fixed robot arms.”

The company’s final assembly is done in the US, Bhageria said. However, the machine utensil components attached to the end of its robot arms are all currently made in China.

Bhageria initially wanted to shift that production last year, as Trump escalated tariffs on Chinese imports . He quickly discovered it would be prohibitively expensive to make the plastic grabbers in the US, and that many suppliers outside China didn’t have the capability to fill his order.

“It’s actually been a much harder process than we had initially hoped,” he said. “We will even talk to some really good machine shops in the US and they’re like, ‘We can’t do this.’”

Those challenges underscore how important Chinese industrial advancement has become to US companies. But the US administration remains insistent on discouraging use of Chinese technology, and the range of prohibited products continues to expand.

In July, the Federal Communications Commission added power inverters and new advanced robotics – like the humanoids that can run, jump, dance and fight – to its list of restricted foreign-made technology. The US has also forbidden cars using Chinese software and enacted a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles. Similar tariffs on drones took effect last month, following a ban on new models in December.

The ever-growing list has left even American corporate giants like Ford struggling to keep up. The blue-chip automaker drew criticism from the Trump administration earlier this month for improper links to Chinese technology, namely its use of Chinese electric car batteries made by CATL.

Ford rejected claims that it was ceding US manufacturing to Chinese entities.

Michael Murray, chief executive of Kopin Corporation which makes optical components for drones used by the US military , said it has taken the company more than two years to relocate manufacturing for some of its micro display screens from China to the US.

He estimates that making those components in the US costs as much as 25% more, though the expenses of moving the supply chain have been offset by funding from the Department of Defense.

“We don’t have the volumes to get the costs down as much as the rest of the market, so there is a price squeeze there that we have to accommodate for,” he said.

As regulation has become more stringent on the sourcing of sensitive technologies, more companies are looking for US-made parts, Murray said. Still, China can produce more micro displays in one week than the US can produce in a year, he added.

Gavin Kenneally, whose company makes industrial and military robot dogs, is working to find a new source of rare earth metals, of which China has nearly a global monopoly.

Ghost Robotics has already moved its motor production from China to South Korea, and currently procures its neodymium magnets from a European company. But the raw material comes from China, which means it will be subject to a government ban starting in January.

“It’s an extremely difficult supply chain problem to solve in the short term,” said Kenneally, who added that such policies are often telegraphed in advance to give companies time to adjust. “In the long term, I think these bans have had the stimulative effect that the government had designed them to have.”

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As US suppliers work to catch up, analysts and executives said limited access to China’s extensive supply chain could hinder American progress in both cutting-edge industries like AI and robotics, and traditional manufacturing.

“In the time that it takes an American company to build their first prototype, a Chinese company may already be on version three,” said Saman Farid, founder of industry coalition Robots for America, and Formic, which supplies industrial robots to US factories.

While Farid’s customers have not yet been impacted, he worries that the scope of restrictions will grow, and manufacturers will have to go without the most competitive equipment and technologies.

“If alternatives are not created fast enough, then it could be a real stumbling block for American businesses,” he said.

Without the cheap humanoid robots that China mass produces, US universities and research labs may also have to turn to older or more expensive models.

At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, engineering professor Sayan Mitra said several courses use robotic arms, drones, humanoids and vehicles from China. Replacing Chinese humanoids with US ones could cost 10 times more, while other drone options may not even exist, he said.

“It’s like we are trying to do surgery on a patient that is already on their feet,” Mitra said. “If it is done in a very ad hoc, unpredictable way, it’s going to slow down everything. And in fact, the solution we are aspiring towards, like creating strong robotics researchers and having a domestic supply chain, can completely get derailed because we’re going to block the process of getting robots and experimenting with them.”

Even everyday home goods are in the government’s crosshairs. The FCC ban on mobile robots includes new versions of automated devices like robot vacuums, pool cleaners and lawn mowers, the vast majority of which are also made in China.

“It’s extremely difficult to move manufacturing to the US,” said Jitesh Ubrani, director of consumer devices research at IDC, a tech intelligence firm. “Long-term, sure, that could happen. But that’ll probably be very expensive, and so the US consumers end up just paying a whole lot more.”

在旧金山创立机器人初创公司七年后，拉贾特·巴格里亚面临着一项艰巨的新任务：在没有任何中国帮助的情况下制造机器人。

与大多数美国机器人公司一样，Chef Robotics 也严重依赖中国零部件来制造其出售给食品制造商的机械臂，用于自动化组装预制食品。中国能够以无与伦比的规模生产廉价零部件，使其成为全球极具竞争力的技术产品的重要来源。

但随着中国开始在电动汽车、自动化工厂等先进产业中占据主导地位，在唐纳德·特朗普总统的领导下，日益奉行保护主义的美国加大了对中国技术在国内使用的限制，包括无人机、移动机器人和其他关键电子产品。

“当然，有一段时间，我们的想法是，‘嘿，让我们找到最好的组件，并且以最便宜的价格找到它们，’”巴格里亚说。

现在投资者和客户开始问他另一个问题：“为什么你还在使用外国制造的零部件？”

中美之间日益激烈的竞争，加深了人们对过度依赖中国系统和供应链所带来的国家安全风险的担忧。

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美国官员以保护敏感的消费者和政府数据、同时鼓励国内制造业发展为由，禁止引进外国技术。但专家警告称，这些限制措施可能产生意想不到的后果：削弱美国公司与中国竞争对手抗衡的能力。

数十年的外包导致美国制造商无法满足市场需求，从而导致需要尖端电子产品和日常电子产品的公司、大学和消费者面临更高的成本和更长的等待时间。

“我们的许多数字生活都建立在外国制造的零部件和在国外组装的商品的基础设施之上，这种情况短期内不会改变，”麻省理工学院工业绩效中心执行主任本·阿姆斯特朗说道，他主要研究制造业竞争力和自动化。

“我们目前还不知道如何在美国生产这些产品。所以，我们需要一个学习过程，而在这段学习过程中，价格会很高，”他说道。

巴格里亚希望，通过现在就开始寻找替代供应商，他的公司可以减轻未来可能造成的经济损失。

他之所以能享有这种特权，是因为他机械臂的部件目前尚未受到禁令的影响。但他担心禁令清单会越来越长。“你可以想象接下来会发生什么，对吧？比如，下一步可能就是固定式机械臂了。”

巴格里亚表示，公司的最终组装工作在美国完成。然而，目前安装在机器人手臂末端的机械配件全部产自中国。

巴格里亚最初想在去年特朗普提高对中国进口商品的关税时将生产线转移出去。但他很快发现，在美国生产塑料抓取器的成本高得令人望而却步，而且许多中国以外的供应商也没有能力满足他的订单。

“这实际上比我们最初预想的要困难得多，”他说。“我们甚至联系了一些美国非常优秀的机械加工厂，他们都说，‘我们做不了。’”

这些挑战凸显了中国工业进步对美国企业的重要性。但美国政府仍然坚持不鼓励使用中国技术，而且禁售产品的范围还在不断扩大。

今年7月，美国联邦通信委员会将电源逆变器和新型先进机器人（例如能够奔跑、跳跃、跳舞和战斗的人形机器人）列入限制进口外国技术清单。美国还禁止使用中国软件的汽车，并对中国电动汽车征收100%的关税。继去年12月禁止进口新型无人机之后，类似的无人机关税也于上个月生效。

不断增长的名单甚至让福特这样的美国企业巨头也难以跟上步伐。这家蓝筹汽车制造商本月早些时候因与中国技术存在不正当联系而受到特朗普政府的批评，特别是其使用宁德时代（CATL）生产的中国电动汽车电池。

福特否认了有关其将美国制造业拱手让给中国实体的说法。

为美国军方无人机生产光学元件的 Kopin 公司首席执行官迈克尔·默里表示，该公司花了两年多的时间才将其部分微型显示屏的生产从中国转移到美国。

他估计，在美国生产这些零部件的成本要高出 25%，不过，由于国防部提供了资金，转移供应链的费用已经得到抵消。

他说：“我们的销量不足以像市场上的其他企业那样大幅降低成本，因此我们面临着价格挤压，我们必须适应这种情况。”

穆雷表示，随着对敏感技术采购的监管日益严格，越来越多的公司开始寻求美国制造的零部件。但他补充说，尽管如此，中国一周生产的微型显示器数量仍然超过美国一年的产量。

加文·肯纳利的公司生产工业和军用机器狗，他正在努力寻找稀土金属的新来源，而中国几乎垄断了全球稀土金属市场。

Ghost Robotics已将其电机生产线从中国转移到韩国，目前从一家欧洲公司采购钕磁铁。但这些原材料来自中国，这意味着从明年1月起，它们将受到政府禁令的限制。

肯纳利表示：“这是一个短期内极难解决的供应链问题。”他还补充说，此类政策通常会提前公布，以便企业有时间进行调整。“从长远来看，我认为这些禁令已经达到了政府预期的刺激效果。”

塞缪尔·科鲁姆/彭博社/盖蒂图片社

分析师和企业高管表示，随着美国供应商努力迎头赶上，对中国庞大供应链的有限准入可能会阻碍美国在人工智能和机器人等尖端产业以及传统制造业方面取得进展。

“美国公司制造出第一个原型机的时间，中国公司可能已经推出了第三代产品了，”美国机器人行业联盟“美国机器人”和向美国工厂供应工业机器人的福美克公司创始人萨曼·法里德说道。

虽然法里德的客户尚未受到影响，但他担心限制范围会扩大，制造商将不得不放弃最具竞争力的设备和技术。

他说：“如果替代方案不能及时出现，那么这可能会成为美国企业真正的绊脚石。”

如果没有中国大规模生产的廉价人形机器人，美国大学和研究实验室可能也不得不转向使用较旧或更昂贵的型号。

伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校工程学教授萨扬·米特拉表示，该校多门课程都使用了来自中国的机械臂、无人机、人形机器人和车辆。他指出，用美国产的人形机器人替换中国产的同类产品，成本可能要高出十倍，而其他无人机方案或许根本不存在。

“这就像我们要给一个已经能站立的病人做手术一样，”米特拉说。“如果手术方式非常随意、不可预测，就会拖慢整个进程。事实上，我们所追求的解决方案，比如培养强大的机器人研究人员和建立国内供应链，都可能因为阻碍机器人的获取和实验而彻底失败。”

就连日常家居用品也成了政府的重点监管对象。美国联邦通信委员会（FCC）对移动机器人的禁令涵盖了新型自动化设备，例如扫地机器人、泳池清洁机器人和割草机，而这些设备绝大多数也产自中国。

“将制造业转移到美国极其困难，”科技情报公司IDC的消费设备研究主管吉特什·乌布拉尼表示。“从长远来看，这当然有可能实现。但这可能会非常昂贵，最终美国消费者将支付更高的价格。”