Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has urged Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to change current Pentagon policies so that foreigners will no longer have access to the Pentagon’s secure systems.
Cotton, in a letter to Hegseth on Wednesday, said he believes this change “should be addressed immediately,” and the Arkansas senator has introduced an amendment to the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act to address it.
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“The language in current DoD policy guidance allows non-U.S. citizens to access DoD systems, which I believe should be addressed immediately,” the letter said. “Foreign persons should never be allowed to access DoD systems, regardless of whether a U.S. citizen is supervising. The Department, particularly the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, has the authority to immediately make these policy changes. I urge you to do so now.”
The senator said in a subsequent social media post that he introduced an amendment to the must-pass FY2025 National Defense Authorization Act that “permanently closes this loophole.”
Cotton has repeatedly emphasized the need to improve DoD cybersecurity amid growing threats from adversaries.
Earlier this week, the Arkansas senator sent a letter to the chair of Intel’s board, Frank Yeary, raising concerns about CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s investments in hundreds of Chinese tech firms, including eight of which reportedly have ties to the Chinese military. Tan was appointed CEO of Intel in March 2025.
Before joining Intel, he served as CEO of Cadence Design Systems, a company that produces electronic design automation (EDA) technology. Cadence pleaded guilty last week to illegally selling its products to a Chinese military university and agreed to pay more than $140 million.
The university, National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), is under the leadership of the PRC’s Central Military Commission, and it was added to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List in February 2015 over its use of U.S.-origin components to produce supercomputers believed to support nuclear explosive simulation and military simulation activities, according to the Department of Justice.
Last month, a ProPublica investigation revealed that Microsoft was using Chinese engineers to service the Pentagon’s cloud computing systems and monitoring them with “digital escorts.”
Cotton also raised concerns following this reporting.
“It turns out, some tech companies have been using cheap Chinese labor to assist with DoD cloud services. This is obviously unacceptable, especially in today’s digital threat environment,” Hegseth said in a video posted online on July 18. “I’m announcing that China will no longer have any involvement whatsoever in our cloud services effective immediately.”
HEGSETH TURNS TO HIS MISSION TO RESHAPE THE MILITARY
Microsoft confirmed in the aftermath of the secretary’s comments that they changed their policies to no longer allow China-based engineering teams to provide support for DoD government cloud services.
“In response to concerns raised earlier this week about US-supervised foreign engineers, Microsoft has made changes to our support for U.S. Government customers to assure that no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance for DOD Government cloud and related services,” Microsoft’s chief communications officer, Frank Shaw, told the Washington Examiner last month.