Florida Senator Marco Rubio continues his effort to ensure that American technology is protected from China and any other nation that can prove to be a concern by joining a bipartisan effort with Democrat Senator Mark Warner.

A member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee, Senator Rubio teamed up with Warner to help unveil a bill that will “combat tech-specific threats to national security posed by foreign actors like China and ensure U.S. technological supremacy by improving interagency coordination across the U.S. government.” The bill will also create “an Office of Critical Technologies & Security at the White House responsible for coordinating across agencies and developing a long-term, whole-of-government strategy to protect against state-sponsored technology theft and risks to critical supply chains.”

At the end of 2018, Senator Rubio heavily focused on tech companies that had ties to China’s regime because companies like ZTE have faced many accusations of stealing American technology.

Rubio explained late last year that “Chinese companies are not like American companies… There isn’t a single company in China that doesn’t have to do whatever the government tells them to do. They are legally required to do it, and trust me if they don’t do it, they’ll find a new CEO to run that company, or a new company to take that company’s place. When the Chinese ask a telecoms company, ‘We want you to turn over all the data you’ve gathered in a country you’re operating in,’ they will do it. No court order, nothing like that, they will just do it. They have to. We need to understand that.”

Speaking on the benefit of the legislation, Rubio noted that “China continues to conduct a coordinated assault on U.S. Intellectual property, U.S. business, and our government networks and information with the full backing of the Chinese Communist Party. The United States needs a more coordinated approach to directly counter this critical threat and ensure we better protect U.S. technology. We must continue to do everything possible to prevent foreign theft of our technology, and interference in our networks and critical infrastructure. By establishing the Office of Critical Technologies and Security, this bill will help protect the United States by streamlining efforts across the government. I look forward to working with my colleagues and the administration to enact this legislation and guard against these national security threats.”