[1] A Senate version of the bill contained provisions blocking a proposed settlement to lift an export denial order affecting Chinese telecommunications equipment company ZTE.

The provision was not included in the final version, but section 889 does maintain a provision banning the federal government from purchasing equipment from certain Chinese vendors due to security concerns, including Huawei and ZTE, as well as any surveillance equipment for the purposes of national security from Dahua Technology, Hytera, and Hikvision.

[2][3][4] Section 1286 requires the U.S. Defense Department to protect U.S. defense critical technologies research at U.S. academic institutions and publish a list of Chinese and Russian academic institutions involved in intellectual property theft, espionage, with military or intelligence connections, or operating malign foreign talent recruitment programs posting a threat to the U.S. national interest.

[7] The federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in February 2020, concluding that U.S. Congress acted within its powers by including the restriction in the NDAA 2019.

He asserted that Section 8005 of the NDAA 2019, which states "[t]hat such authority to transfer may not be used unless for higher priority items, based on unforeseen military requirements, than those for which originally appropriated and in no case where the item for which funds are requested has been denied by the Congress", allowed him re-allocate about US$8 billion in funds from the Defense Department, including US$3.6 billion allocated for military construction and US$2.5 billion for drug rehab programs, to the Department of Homeland Security to construct the wall as an "unforeseen" requirement.