Economic Espionage Prevention Act
Key claim: The Economic Espionage Prevention Act authorizes the President to impose visa- and property-blocking sanctions on foreign adversary entities that engage in economic espionage, support adversary national-security entities, or violate U.S. export controls, and limits IEEPA exemptions for bulk sensitive personal data and software source code.
Abstract
(HR1486 · 119th Congress) Economic Espionage Prevention Act This bill authorizes the President to impose visa- and property-blocking sanctions on foreign adversary entities that knowingly engage in (1) economic and industrial espionage with respect to trade secrets and proprietary information owned by U.S. persons, (2) the provision of material support or services to a foreign adversaries’ national security entities, or (3) the violation of U.S. export control laws. The bill cites regulations that define China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and the Maduro regime of Venezuela as foreign adversaries. The bill also limits certain exemptions from the President’s authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). IEEPA provides the President broad authority to regulate a variety of economic transactions following a declaration of national emergency, but exempts from this authority activities such as (1) the import or export of information or informational materials; (2) transactions ordinarily incident to international travel, such as the importation of personal baggage; and (3) personal communications, such as postal or telephonic communications, that do not transfer anything of value. Under the bill, the first two of these exemptions are not applicable if the President determines such imports and exports would seriously impair the ability to deal with a declared national emergency. Additionally, the bill specifies that the first and third exemptions listed above do not apply to bulk sensitive personal data or source code used in a connected software application. Latest action (2025-05-06): Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
Why this matters
The bill would create a dedicated sanctions regime for economic and industrial espionage tied to defined foreign adversaries, giving the executive branch visa- and asset-blocking tools that currently sit outside the export-control enforcement toolkit. Its narrowing of longstanding IEEPA carve-outs for informational materials and personal travel — specifically for bulk sensitive personal data and connected-software source code — would meaningfully expand what U.S. persons and exporters can be barred from transferring to adversary jurisdictions.