The most advanced category of mass-produced semiconductors — used in smartphones, military technology and much more — is known as 5 nm. A single company in Taiwan, known as TSMC, makes about 90 percent of them. U.S. factories make none.

The U.S.’s struggles to keep pace in semiconductor manufacturing have already had economic downsides: Many jobs in the industry pay more than $100,000 a year, and the U.S. has lost out on them. Longer term, the situation also has the potential to cause a national security crisis: If China were to invade Taiwan and cut off exports of semiconductors, the American military would be at risk of being overmatched by its main rival for global supremacy…

But the Senate’s semiconductor bill still has not become law. The House spent months negotiating its own bill, passing one in February. Since then, the House and Senate have failed to resolve the differences between the two bills, and Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, recently threatened to scuttle the talks.

The standoff has become another example of dysfunctional congressional politics weakening the U.S.’s global standing.