US to add over 30 Chinese companies to trade blacklist

The Biden administration plans to place Chinese chip maker Yangtze Memory Technologies and 35 other Chinese firms on a trade blacklist that would prevent them from buying certain American components, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.

The U.S Department of Commerce will add the Chinese companies to a so-called Entity List as early as this week, the report said, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Once a company is added to the entity list, its U.S. suppliers must seek a special license to ship even low-tech items to it.

YMTC declined to comment, and the U.S. Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment outside business hours.

Dozens of other Chinese entities, including YMTC, were “at risk” of being added to a trade blacklist as soon as Dec. 6, a U.S. Commerce Department official said in prepared remarks seen by Reuters last month.

In October, 31 entities, including YMTC, were added to a list of companies that U.S. officials have been unable to inspect, ratcheting up tensions with Beijing. Reuters