As US Justice Department shifts focus from foreign agents, will that ease Chinese cases?

US Attorney General Pam Bondi disbands a task force and cuts back on foreign registration cases, but analysts say any relief may be limited

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Published: 11:00pm, 20 Mar 2025Updated: 12:00pm, 21 Mar 2025

As one of her first acts in office, Donald Trump’s new US Attorney General Pam Bondi shut down a years-long operation to combat influence campaigns from China and other countries – an initiative launched under the first Trump administration.

Buried near the bottom of one of 14 memos issued on her first day, Bondi disbanded the Justice Department’s Foreign Influence Task Force. She also pared back criminal enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and other foreign agents statutes, limiting prosecutions to cases involving “more traditional espionage”.

Bondi’s decision marks a sharp departure from the gradual, years-long shift of the Justice Department’s focus on non-traditional collectors of intelligence – a group that has included Chinese scientists, business professionals and diaspora leaders.

Without further indication of which way the department’s spotlight will swing, the change has prompted differing reactions: some are concerned the decision may open the doors wide for foreign meddling, while others, including those who have criticised the department for disproportionate and racially motivated targeting, are quietly breathing a sigh of relief – however temporary.

Only months earlier, Republican lawmakers had threatened to bring back the China Initiative, a Justice Department programme aimed at combating economic espionage and enhancing enforcement of FARA related to Chinese interests that began under the first Trump administration.

The initiative was cancelled by Joe Biden’s administration in 2022 after three years, following criticism that it resulted in racial profiling, failed prosecutions and derailed careers and scientific collaboration over minor infractions, such as paperwork errors, that posed no genuine national security threat.

Scientists prosecuted and later cleared under the initiative, like the University of Kansas’ Franklin Tao, spoke out about “losing almost everything”.