MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Should the U.S. spy on foreign companies to protect American ones? David Cohen makes the case for economic espionage in a new article in Foreign Affairs. Cohen served twice as deputy director of the CIA, and he writes that by abstaining, quote, "the United States has tilted the playing field against itself and magnified the Chinese threat." David Cohen is here with me in our Washington studios. Welcome.
DAVID COHEN: Thank you. Good to be here.
KELLY: Explain what you mean by that - the U.S. has tilted the playing field against itself. How so?
COHEN: So the U.S. has embraced this norm that we would not engage in foreign intelligence collection for the purpose of advancing the commercial prospects of our companies, of American companies. And the reason that that tilts the playing field against the United States is really for three reasons. The first is that our commercial companies, more and more, are critical to our national defense, whether it's AI or semiconductors or quantum computers that are coming online that are both sold as consumer products and sold to the U.S. government. The other two ways it's changed is the Chinese are increasingly catching up or surpassing American technology firms in these frontier technologies.
KELLY: So just to sum up...
COHEN: So - yeah.
KELLY: ...What I'm hearing you say, in a world where the U.S. was so far ahead of our foreign competitors...
COHEN: Yeah.
KELLY: ...There was no need to deploy economic espionage 'cause we had more to lose than we would to gain...
COHEN: Exactly.
KELLY: ...Because we were that far ahead.
COHEN: Not only no need - yeah.
KELLY: But now China has changed that.
COHEN: Exactly. Not only no need, but also much more to lose. That is no longer the case. And the third reason is that there has been a shift in how we think about industries, companies that are involved in national security in this country. You know, the orthodoxy of the 1970s, 1980s, of sort of a free market, that has given way to a very deliberate national security-centric industrial policy that has been embraced across several administrations now.
KELLY: So just to spell out the very basic argument here, U.S. intelligence agencies do spy on foreign companies, and this is totally fine so long as it's being used for national security purposes and not to benefit...
COHEN: Right.
KELLY: ...Private American...
COHEN: Yeah.
KELLY: ...Companies, correct?
COHEN: It has long been the case that we collect foreign intelligence for a whole variety of governmental purposes - to inform trade negotiations, to inform sanctions policy, even to provide information to companies about how they are going to be attacked by a foreign power. So we will provide to a private firm an indication that they are the target of a cyberattack from a foreign company. But what we won't do is provide intelligence to help a U.S. company compete more effectively in the commercial sector. That's the line that has been drawn historically that I think is time to lift.
KELLY: And you're arguing, look, America's adversaries, America's allies are doing this. Why not return the favor?
COHEN: Yeah, but it isn't just a fight-fire-with-fire argument. It is really an argument that this is something that we need to do to enhance our national security.
KELLY: So what would this look like? Give me an example if we embrace the change that you're arguing for.
COHEN: Well, I think it's very important that we do this in a way that is carefully controlled because there are dangers here. One is that by favoring certain firms in the economy, that that favoritism sort of bleeds over into corruption, frankly. And so you want to have some rigorous, objective, neutral criteria about which sectors of the economy we will provide this intelligence to and which firms in those sectors that we provide information to. And you want to be sure that it's not just going to companies that happen to have, you know, political connections, particularly...
KELLY: That feels like not a small challenge. Like, how do you...
COHEN: It's a...
KELLY: ...Pick which firm...
COHEN: Right.
KELLY: ...Which companies in fields where American companies are competing...
COHEN: Yeah.
KELLY: ...With each other?
COHEN: Yeah. So my proposal is that the president, working with Congress, develop neutral criteria that can be identified in advance, and the determination of which firms would receive this information would be subject to careful oversight both by the congressional oversight committees and by inspectors general in the intelligence community to ensure that there isn't undue favoritism being shown for personal or political reasons.
KELLY: That also feels like a not insignificant challenge, putting up guardrails, having oversight in a carefully...
COHEN: Right.
KELLY: ...Calibrated way. I mean, you're a former U.S. government official...
COHEN: Yeah.
KELLY: ...Across many years, both at CIA and at Treasury. Do you have full confidence that Congress and American president are going to work together and do this in a responsible way?
COHEN: Well, I think that is essential, if we're going to do this, that that's the way it should happen. My concern, frankly, is that this may be beginning to happen sort of in the shadows. There may be sort of a creeping erosion of this norm going on right now. And so the worst of all worlds is that we abandon this norm in a circumstance where we don't do it deliberately and we don't do it with some significant forethought, and we don't do it with these guardrails in place.
KELLY: Have you floated this idea to your former colleagues at the Central Intelligence Agency?
COHEN: Well, I floated the idea by writing the article, and I've had a lot of feedback.
KELLY: You quote a CIA case officer in your piece - this is a case officer back in the '90s - but who said, and I'm quoting, "I'm prepared to give my life for my country but not for a company."
COHEN: Yeah.
KELLY: Do you anticipate resistance along those lines?
COHEN: So I anticipate some but not a lot of resistance along those lines. I think that that is very much a 1990s perspective, and I think that the case officers in the agency have also come to recognize the importance of the private sector and private sector innovation, both in what they do in helping them perform their job but also more broadly in our national defense enterprise. So I think that the - that reluctance is one that I think is not going to be a significant impediment.
KELLY: Last question that's popping into my head listening to you - at the pace that tech is changing...
COHEN: Yeah.
KELLY: ...In 2026, are you, David Cohen, still entirely confident that U.S. intelligence has a skill set that would be of value in helping the private sector get ahead, at the rate that AI, for example, is racing forward?
COHEN: I do. I do. I think we have in the intelligence community very skilled analysts and operators who can identify what it is, in conversation with the private sector, and can go out and get that. But it will require this careful and more robust communication between the private sector and the intelligence community. And it requires, I think, continuing to bring on board into the intelligence community people who have experience, expertise, education in these tech sectors and opening up those channels as well. So it's not just a channel of communication. It's also a channel of personnel sort of moving in and moving out of the intelligence community and the private sector so that people stay fresh on these technologies.
KELLY: David Cohen, former deputy director of the CIA. His piece for Foreign Affairs is headlined "The Case For Economic Espionage." David Cohen, thank you.
COHEN: Thank you.
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