**”Consideration of Adding CXMT to Export Ban List… Deliberations Over Tariff Negotiation Impact”**
(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Lim Ji-woo – The Financial Times (FT) reported on the 15th (local time) that the Trump administration is considering additional sanctions against Chinese semiconductor companies.
However, there is internal disagreement regarding the timing of applying these sanctions due to their potential impact on tariff negotiations with China.
According to the report, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is considering adding Chinese memory semiconductor company ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) to the export “blacklist,” which would ban U.S. companies from doing business with them, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
The draft prepared by BIS includes not only CXMT but also subsidiaries of China’s largest foundry company, SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation), and memory chip company YMTC (Yangtze Memory Technologies). The parent companies of SMIC and YMTC have already been designated as U.S. export-ban companies.
However, FT reported that there is disagreement within the Trump administration about the timing of these additional sanctions.
The U.S. and China, which had been imposing extremely high tariffs over 100% on each other, have agreed to reduce these tariffs for 90 days, entering a “tariff truce.”
During this period, the two countries plan to engage in further negotiations on economic and trade issues.
FT reported that some U.S. officials are concerned that adding major Chinese semiconductor companies to the sanction list at this time could jeopardize future negotiations with China.
In contrast, hardliners on China argue that the monitoring of Chinese semiconductor technology should not be delayed any further, indicating differences of opinion.
U.S. hardliners on China have long advocated for designating CXMT, which has been rapidly increasing its share in the global DRAM market, as a sanction target. CXMT is also extending its reach into the development of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), essential for AI model development.
If CXMT is included in the U.S. government’s sanction list, U.S. companies will be prohibited from trading with them without government approval.
The Chinese Embassy in the U.S. declined to comment on FT’s request but stated, “China strongly opposes the excessive application of the concept of national security by the U.S., the abuse of export controls, and the malicious obstruction and suppression of China.”
The U.S. Department of Commerce and the White House declined to comment, according to FT.
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