PAI Supports Texas Bold Steps to Purge Chinese Spy Tech from Hospitals

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using compromised technology to infiltrate American healthcare and steal sensitive patient data. Fortunately, the Trump Administration has taken aggressive action to stop the weaponization of our supply chains. Now, leaders in Texas are stepping up to ensure that business as usual with Beijing doesn't come at the cost of patient safety or national security.

Governor Greg Abbott (TX) Orders Statewide CCP Medical Device Audit

In a new directive, Governor Abbott ordered the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) and other state health agencies to immediately review and mitigate cybersecurity risks associated with Chinese-manufactured patient monitoring devices. This action builds on Texas’s leadership in protecting its citizens from foreign adversaries. Just last month, the state expanded its Prohibited Technologies List to include numerous CCP-linked hardware and software entities. Gov. Abbott’s directive specifically targets the healthcare sector, ensuring that the devices used to save lives in Texas hospitals are not simultaneously being used to harvest the private information of Texans.

Texas Legislators Demand Immediate Action to Secure Medical Infrastructure

This week, a coalition of 53 Texas State Legislators sent a formal letter to the state’s health commission urging a total purge of CCP-linked technology from hospital rooms. The move comes after the federal government issued warnings from the FDA and CISA, which revealed that Chinese-made patient monitors contain built-in backdoors capable of transmitting vitals and private data to overseas servers. The legislators are calling for a three-pronged approach: adopting strict cybersecurity standards to ban CCP procurement, launching a full audit of existing state contracts, and incentivizing Made in the USA manufacturing to end our dangerous dependence on adversarial regimes.

President Trump Sets the Standard with Federal National Security Investigation

The U.S. Department of Commerce has officially initiated a national security review under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act to review the risks posed by foreign-made personal protective equipment, medical consumables, and medical devices such as monitoring equipment and surgical tools. This investigation focuses on the dangerous concentration of foreign supply chains and the potential for adversarial nations to weaponize their control over these essential supplies through export restrictions or direct exploitation of device capabilities. By evaluating how foreign actors could manipulate or monitor foreign-built equipment, the Commerce Department is addressing a critical vulnerability in our healthcare infrastructure and moving to protect the data and safety of every American patient.

Florida and Texas are Stepping Up, Which States are Next?

The Protecting America Initiative fully supports this push and commends these 50 legislators for their commitment to the Do No Harm mission. Texas and Florida are on the front lines building firewalls against the CCP. In Florida, Attorney General James Uthmeier recently announced the CHINA (Consumer Harm from International Nefarious Actors) Prevention Unit, a dedicated division tasked with auditing and investigating companies that may be funneling Floridians’ health data to adversarial servers. As these two states set the standard, we are already seeing the next wave of states begin to introduce similar legislation to secure their own critical infrastructure. The momentum is building, and it is time for every governor in America to follow suit and protect their citizens from foreign surveillance. We urge states across the country to follow Texas’s lead and ensure our medical infrastructure is no longer an open door for the CCP.