alt Hacker NewsFrom the NY Times, 1995:
> Spying on allies for economic advantage is a crucial new assignment for the C.I.A. now that American foreign policy is focused on commercial interests abroad. President Clinton made economic intelligence a high priority of his Administration, specifically information to protect and defend American competitiveness, technology and financial security in a world where an economic crisis can spread across global markets in minutes
At the time "only" to have the upper hand in trade negotiations, and presumably when "having the President press foreign countries to award business to American firms", as they call it. But that was 30 years ago, and trust that these these things aren't directly forwarded to US private industry is in short supply these days
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/15/world/emerging-role-for-t...
https://archive.is/LmEA1 (same site without paywall)
If any company, especially one with a global presence, ever even strongly suspected that had happened and a competitor was using something they developed you'd of seen it play out in the courtroom. Hopefully we can all agree that if America is good at anything, it's letting its lawyers be litigious.
The fact that, AFAIK, that's never happened nor been alleged says a lot.