This proposal raises penalties for spying that helps foreign adversaries. It adds tough, mandatory prison time and larger fines for stealing trade secrets or leaking key defense information to benefit a “covered nation” (a category used in federal law for certain foreign governments).

Key points

• Who is affected: People who steal U.S. trade secrets to aid a covered nation, and organizations involved in such theft; it also touches the law on handling defense information.
• What changes: Minimum 10 years in prison for economic espionage done to help a covered nation, with up to 15 years; up to 20 years if the leak causes severe harm to economic or national security. Individuals can be fined up to $5 million and cannot get supervised release. Organizations can be fined up to $20 million or 5 times the value of the stolen trade secret, whichever is greater.
• What counts as “severe harm”: Sharing nonpublic details about critical infrastructure (like how it’s designed or where it’s vulnerable) if that info could be used to seriously damage or shut it down.