US targets China: Dozens of firms added to trade blacklist
Shafaq News/ The US Commerce Department on Wednesday added dozens of companies from China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran to its trade blacklist.
The move, affecting 80 entities in total, aims to disrupt China's development in artificial intelligence and advanced computing, the department said. Companies added to the list are prohibited from obtaining US goods and technologies without a government license.
Eleven Chinese firms and one in Taiwan were named for allegedly contributing to the development of advanced AI, supercomputers, and high-performance chips for users linked to China’s military-industrial complex, including the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence and subsidiaries of tech conglomerate Inspur Group.
Other entities were listed due to their alleged roles in unregulated nuclear activity or ballistic missile programs. The department also cited two firms—one in China and another in Iran—for seeking US-made goods for Iran’s drone and defense industries.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stated, "The United States will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives.”
Jeffrey Kessler, Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security, also said the measure is designed to block the misuse of American technologies in “high performance computing, hypersonic missiles, military aircraft training and [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles] that threaten our national security." Beijing condemned the decision, urging the US to "stop overstretching the concept of national security and to cease abusing all kinds of sanctions lists to unreasonably suppress Chinese companies,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Gu Jia Kun said, calling the move “an act of hegemony.”
Kun added that China would “take necessary steps to defend the rights of its companies.”
The US continues to impose sanctions on select entities over what it describes as "national security" concerns. Earlier, it penalized Iran for its alleged connection to the disappearance of a former FBI agent.
