U.S. officials forged an uneasy compromise to let DuPont sell its sustainable-materials business last year to a Chinese company while ensuring the technology behind it never left the U.S.

The arrangement hasn’t worked as planned, according to people familiar with the matter, exposing flaws in a national-security review process on the front lines of a battle over technology between the U.S. and China—and ultimately prompting an investigation by the FBI.

Divisions on the cabinet-level committee that screens sensitive deals involving foreign buyers were so deep that the government review took more than a year, including an unsuccessful appeal for President Biden to intervene. And the solution members ultimately settled on was undermined in just a few weeks.

At issue was a DuPont technology used to make a key component of a more sustainable version of nylon. After initially describing the invention as revolutionary, DuPont decided a few years ago to sell the business. It found a willing buyer in China, prompting DuPont to apply for permission to proceed from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or Cfius. The panel, led by the Treasury Department, includes representatives of the departments of Defense, Justice, Energy and Commerce and other agencies.

[I hope it’s not pay-walled – it wasn’t when I went through the tweet. It IS maddening, and Biden had a chance tto intervene and stop the deal, and didn’t. No surprise there. ~ Beege]