Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is a Treasury-chaired interagency committee that reviews certain foreign investments and real-estate transactions for national-security risk. It can clear transactions, impose mitigation, monitor compliance and refer unresolved risks to the President. The President, not CFIUS, holds the section 721 power to suspend or prohibit a covered transaction.

Legal authority and governance

Executive Order 11858 created CFIUS in 1975, initially to monitor foreign investment and co-ordinate executive policy. The Exon-Florio amendment of 1988 added the transaction-review framework now codified in section 721 of the Defense Production Act. The Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007 formalised committee procedures, and the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 expanded jurisdiction and strengthened review, monitoring and enforcement.

The Secretary of the Treasury chairs the committee. Statute and executive order specify participating departments and offices, while the Treasury Office of Investment Security administers the process. CFIUS combines interagency policy and security expertise with intelligence analysis. These roles remain distinct. Treasury administers the committee, participating agencies assess risks within their remits, and the President makes any prohibition or suspension decision under section 721.

CFIUS can review a notified transaction, request or require information, investigate, negotiate or impose mitigation, monitor compliance, impose civil penalties within its authority, and examine transactions that were not notified. It can also refer an unresolved risk to the President. A committee clearance or mitigation agreement is CFIUS action. A presidential order is presidential action. A party's abandonment or restructuring of a transaction remains private conduct, even where review pressure materially influenced the decision.

Jurisdiction and process

CFIUS does not review every foreign investment. Its jurisdiction covers specified transactions under section 721 and implementing regulations in 31 CFR parts 800 and 802. These include transactions that could result in foreign control of a United States business, specified non-controlling investments involving critical technology, critical infrastructure or sensitive personal data, and specified real-estate transactions. The applicable definitions, exceptions and filing rules determine whether a particular transaction is covered.

The filing system combines voluntary notices with mandatory declarations for specified transactions. CFIUS can also initiate review of a non-notified transaction. Clearance, mitigation, withdrawal, abandonment, divestiture and presidential prohibition describe different procedural outcomes and should not be collapsed into a single category of blocked investment.

Mitigation addresses identified transaction-specific risk. Measures can include access controls, security protocols, governance arrangements, monitoring and other conditions. An agreement does not establish that an investor was hostile or that the transaction constituted espionage. CFIUS confidentiality also limits the public record, so claims about intelligence findings, state direction or strategic motive must remain within an official order or statement.

CFIUS is an inbound investment and real-estate screening mechanism. Export controls, antitrust review, telecommunications security, procurement restrictions, sanctions and Treasury's outbound investment programme rest on separate authorities. Similar national-security purposes do not merge those systems.

Development and cases

The committee shifted after 1988 from monitoring investment flows towards transaction review, then widened after 2018 to specified non-controlling access to technology, infrastructure and data. Executive Order 14083 directed consideration of evolving risk factors within existing jurisdiction; it did not create new jurisdiction.

Presidential orders illustrate the decision boundary. President George H. W. Bush's 1990 order required China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation to divest MAMCO Manufacturing. Later orders addressed Ralls Corporation's wind-farm interests, Canyon Bridge's proposed acquisition of Lattice Semiconductor, and Broadcom Limited's proposed takeover of Qualcomm. Broadcom was Singapore-domiciled at the time. The 2018 order identified risks to United States technological leadership and the resulting advantage to third-country competitors; it did not find that Broadcom was a Chinese company.

The 21 February 2025 America First Investment Policy stated current executive priorities but did not itself replace section 721 or parts 800 and 802. Treasury's 6 February 2026 request for information on a Known Investor Program likewise marked policy development and consultation. As at 29 July 2026, it should not be described as a statutory ally exemption, a guaranteed clearance route or an enlargement of jurisdiction without an implementing legal instrument.

Statecraft significance and limits

CFIUS uses legal screening and conditional or negative access to investment to protect ownership, technology, infrastructure and data. Its declared purpose is national security, not general economic punishment. Parties and investors can adapt in anticipation of review, but their abandonment, restructuring or caution is private conduct unless an order requires it. A screening decision also does not establish a broader policy of containing another economy without transaction-specific evidence of purpose, authority and effect.

The latest annual report identified at the audit date covers calendar year 2024. Its transaction numbers do not describe 2025 or 2026 activity. Current regulations, the Known Investor initiative and the latest report require a fresh check before publication.

See also

Exon-Florio Amendment (1988) · FIRRMA (2018) · Treasury Office of Investment Security · Team Telecom · Outbound investment screening · Golden shares and special state control rights · Foreign Investment Review Board (Australia) · Investment Security Unit (UK) · Economic security as national security · Weaponised interdependence

Sources

• United States Code, '50 U.S.C. 4565, Authority to review certain mergers, acquisitions, and takeovers', current text checked 29 July 2026.
• Executive Order 11858, 'Foreign investment in the United States' (7 May 1975), as amended.
• United States Department of the Treasury, 'CFIUS laws and guidance', checked 29 July 2026.
• Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, '31 CFR part 800, Regulations pertaining to certain investments in the United States by foreign persons', checked 29 July 2026.
• Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, '31 CFR part 802, Regulations pertaining to certain transactions by foreign persons involving real estate in the United States', checked 29 July 2026.
• Executive Order 14083, 'Ensuring robust consideration of evolving national security risks by CFIUS' (15 September 2022).
• United States Department of the Treasury, CFIUS Annual Report to Congress for calendar year 2024 (August 2025).
• United States Department of the Treasury, 'CFIUS mitigation' and 'CFIUS enforcement', checked 29 July 2026.
• United States Department of the Treasury, 'Final regulations to enhance CFIUS procedures and enforcement authorities' (18 November 2024).
• The White House, 'America First Investment Policy' (21 February 2025), and United States Department of the Treasury, 'Request for information on the Known Investor Program' (6 February 2026).
• The White House, presidential orders concerning Ralls Corporation, Lattice Semiconductor and Broadcom-Qualcomm.
• United States Government Accountability Office, National security reviews of foreign investment (1990).
• Amy Deen Westbrook, 'Securing the Nation or Entrenching the Board? The Evolution of CFIUS Review of Corporate Acquisitions', Marquette Law Review 102, no. 3 (2019).