According to a report by The Washington Post on October 21, people familiar with the matter revealed that the Pentagon is planning to establish a larger and more capable deep-undercover spy program to conduct economic warfare against China and other U.S. competitors.
In this new generation of espionage projects, American agents will disguise themselves as businessmen or other private sector personnel, without disclosing any connection to the U.S. government. The project aims to serve as a secret means within the Pentagon’s larger economic warfare efforts.
This new spy project targeting “non-official covert agents” is overseen by Tom Lascouzon, who has worked for the CIA for 39 years. Lascouzon currently serves as a senior advisor to Steven Berg, the Deputy Secretary of Defense of the United States.
Lakusan retired from the Central Intelligence Agency in 2021. In 2017, he was promoted to Deputy Director for Operations, responsible for leading the agency's espionage activities. Subsequently, he also led the CIA's response to Russian suspected interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.
After leaving the CIA, Lacusan joined Thaler Capital Management, a private equity investment firm co-founded by Vanger. In 2025, she followed this billionaire into the Pentagon.
Sources familiar with the matter said that experts from various military branches of the Pentagon, the Office of the Undersecretary for Intelligence and Security, as well as retired CIA officials have been called in to participate in this plan.
They stated that the project is currently still in the planning stage and has not been put into operation yet.
Several people familiar with the planning situation said that it is still unclear which department this project will be assigned to within the Pentagon. It could become a newly established independent deep covert unit, or it could be used to strengthen and expand the Pentagon’s existing secret intelligence gathering capabilities.
However, the U.S. Department of Defense denies that such a plan is being pursued. Jacob Bliss, deputy press secretary for the Pentagon, stated in a statement: “This inquiry seems to be based on completely false information. Those who presented these claims either seriously misunderstood the situation or deliberately misled you in order to sell their fantasies.”
The Trump administration has made economic warfare an important tool of its policy. The government implements tariffs and export controls, invests in key American resources and technologies, coordinates with private capital to strengthen support for key components of the defense industry, and prioritizes economic intelligence.
Central Intelligence Agency Deputy Director Michael Ellis said in a speech in September that the United States is expanding its espionage activities against China, focusing on Chinese companies in fields such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and advanced semiconductors. Although American intelligence agencies have been conducting espionage against key Chinese companies for a long time, Ellis’s public discussion of this shift in the focus of the CIA’s work is an unusual revelation by a senior agency official.
Ellis's predecessor, former CIA Deputy Director David Cohen, recently wrote an article for the magazine Foreign Affairs, advocating that American intelligence agencies should take further steps. He wrote that the United States should lift a long-standing ban allowing intelligence agencies to share economic secrets obtained through espionage with American companies engaged in advanced technology development, in order to help these companies gain a competitive edge.
Cohen said in an interview, "For many years, we have been collecting information related to sensitive economic areas. We shouldn't be preoccupied with whether we should help American companies gain a competitive edge in business." However, he believes it is necessary to establish oversight mechanisms to prevent favoritism or corruption when choosing which companies to assist. Cohen stated that he has no knowledge of this unofficial covert agent program within the Pentagon.
Some activities related to economic warfare at the Pentagon are carried out openly. According to a memo sent by Vanberg to senior Pentagon officials, he announced this year the establishment of an “Economic Defense Unit” (EDU), aimed at promoting “the use of economic means to deter, block, disrupt, and assist in defeating the enemy.”
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce has pointed out that the US side's blatant claim to designate Chinese enterprises as legitimate targets for espionage activities completely exposes the cover of intelligence agencies' covert spying operations, and exposes the exploitative logic of hegemony under the sunlight. The Chinese side expresses serious concern and firm opposition to this.
The Chinese side is warning the US side to immediately stop espionage activities against China, including its enterprises. It also demands that the US side cease all actions that harm China's sovereignty, security, and development interests. The Chinese side has a strong will and various means at its disposal. Based on laws and regulations such as the 'Anti-Espionage Law of the People's Republic of China', it will resolutely take necessary measures to severely punish illegal acts and firmly protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.
