Through some searches I don't recall the details of, I stumbled on this paper, which makes reference to an old U.S. national security dispute over imports of semiconductor products:
... The very first trade dispute in semiconductors was in 1959. American transistor producers sought protection from Japanese exports of low-priced transistors on national security grounds. They filed a petition with the U.S. government, and the government was asked to intervene to protect the domestic semiconductor industry.
...
As previously remarked, the initial challenge occurred in 1959, when a surge of low-priced Japanese transistor imports first hit American markets. (In 1958 Japan shipped 1,000 units worth $7,000 to the United States; in 1959 it shipped 1.8 million units worth $1.1 million.) Citing national security concerns, a U.S. industry group, the Electronics Industry Association, petitioned the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization (OCDM) to impose quotas on Japanese transistor imports.5
-----
5. The OCDM, an executive branch agency, was the predecessor of the Office of Emergency Preparedness. See "Import Study Nears Showdown," Electronics, November 6, 1959, pp. 32-33; "Electronics in Japan," Electronics, May 27, 1960, pp. 99-100; and "Washington Rejects Transistor Import Quota," Electronics, June 8, 1962, p. 7.
...
After a good two and a half years of discussion, the U.S. producers' petition to restrict Japanese transistor imports was rejected in 1963 on narrow national security grounds. ...
(What's the connection between transistors and semiconductors? Doug Irwin explains here: "The origins of the semiconductor industry date from 1947 when Bell Labs developed the first transistor and from 1959 with the invention of the integrated circuit. Integrated circuits, in which increasing numbers (at first hundreds, then thousands and now millions) of transistors are etched onto a thin wafer of silicon, quickly became the building block of the industry.")
I tried to find out a bit more about this 1959 transistor import national security case, but the best I could do with a few searches was this explanation from the Electronics Industry Association in the Congressional Record in 1960:
In fact, last September this association filed a petition in behalf of its member companies requesting that the Director of the Office of Civil Defense Mobilization exercise the authority conferred in him under section 8 of the Trade Agreement Extension Act to (1) initiate an immediate investigation of the import of semiconductors, including those contained in finished products, (2) determine pursuant to such whether such imports represent present or foreseeable threat to our national security, and (3) take whatever action is deemed appropriate as the result of such investigation to alleviate any possible threat to impairment of our national security. EIA'S application was filed on September 17, 1959, pursuant to OCDM regulation 4.
...
On October 2, 1959, the Director of Office of Civil Defense Mobilization announced that "he has ordered an investigation of imports of transistors and related products under the provisions of section 8 of the 1958 Trade Agreements Act." His announcement stated further: "The investigation will cover all semiconductor products including diodes rectifiers and transistors imported as separate units as com bination of units or contained in finished products."
...
In brief, the EIA application to the OCDM stated that the increasing foreign penetration of the American semiconductor market will have an adverse effect upon the growth of the electronics industry producing these products; that the continued trend of imports of such products will impair the efforts of American producers to provide the capacity to meet existing and potential national security requirements; that it will create instability in employment thereby resulting in loss of essential skills; and finally, that it will result in an eventual reduction in research and development needed to further advance the art -- all to the detriment of our national security program and efforts to meet the challenge of Soviet Russia for superiority in military technology in electronics.
I'd love to find out more about all this, so if any grad students out there are looking for a research topic, please feel free to do a deep dive into it. The first place to check might be the National Archives records for the Office of Civil Defense Mobilization. Also, the directors of that Office are listed here. Two of the directors during the relevant period have collections of their papers available: Leo Hoegh and Edward McDermott.
