Knowledge flows remain the critical exchange for upgrading within economies, but also for technological advancement or “innovation,” across national economies. Intellectual Property regimes such as the World Intellectual Property Organization protect knowledge resources in Global Value Chains (GVC). This paper builds on recent efforts to bring the study of law into GVC scholarship with a focus on U.S. institutions managing knowledge flows in trade and investment, with a focus on intellectual property rights. Associations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) work to institutionalize trust in legal procedures supporting knowledge exchange in what I term a “property dialogue.” However, U.S. security concerns about China’s military applications of knowledge drawn from these streams have prompted the U.S. administration to initiate new controls. What are the controls and how will the controls affect the broader cooperation on property rights? Will de-risking out of security concerns lead to a broader de-coupling of supply chains? This paper tracks recent U.S. policies on chain resilience and chain security to assess their effect on bilateral market ties.