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☆ Targeting Chinese chips, U.S. to push Dutch on ASML service contracts
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-05 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Alan Estevez, the U.S. export policy chief, is scheduled to meet in the Netherlands next Monday with officials from the Dutch government and ASML to discuss the servicing contracts, the people said. Washington may also be seeking to add to a list of Chinese chipmaking factories restricted from receiving Dutch equipment as part of the discussions, one of the people said. The Dutch Foreign Ministry confirmed the upcoming meeting but did not elaborate on which topics would be on the agenda. The meeting of officials on Monday is one example of that," the Ministry told Reuters. The Commerce Department and ASML, whose shares briefly fell after the news, declined to comment.

Persons: Joe Biden's, Alan Estevez, ASML Organizations: Dutch Foreign Ministry, Ministry, Reuters, Embassy, U.S, China, Commerce Department Locations: Netherlands, China, U.S, Washington, Beijing

☆ U.S. assessing if China's SMIC broke U.S. rules to make Huawei chip
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-22 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

A logo hangs on the building of the Beijing branch of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) on December 4, 2020 in Beijing, China. When asked by Representative Michael McCaul if SMIC broke U.S. export rules to produce the sophisticated chip, Alan Estevez, who oversees export policy, said "potentially yes. Questions have surfaced about whether SMIC illegally obtained U.S. tools to make the chip. That comes amid growing pressure from China hardliners to take action against the two companies since Huawei unveiled a new phone powered by a sophisticated chip manufactured at SMIC in August. When asked about SMIC's ability to produce the chip for Huawei using American tools, Estevez said, "I can't talk about any investigations that may or may not be going.

Persons: Biden, SMIC, Michael McCaul, Alan Estevez, Estevez, Trump, Donald Trump Organizations: Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, Visual China, Getty, Commerce Department, Huawei, SMIC Locations: Beijing, China

☆ Biden administration blacklists China firms for Moscow, Tehran drone links
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-26 | by ( Clement Tan | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

A broken window is seen after Russia launched 33 drones into the direction of Kyiv region, Ukraine on September 10, 2023. In a separate statement, the Ukrainian Air Force said that Russia sent 33 Shahed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) toward Kyiv and Ukrainian forces shot down 26 of them. Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty ImagesThe Biden administration slapped fresh trade curbs on 11 Chinese and five Russian companies Monday, targeting foreign actors seen as compromising national security and drawing Beijing's ire. None of the Chinese entities cited were able to immediately respond to CNBC's requests for comment. CNBC was unable to reach the spokesperson of one company for comment, while some of the companies did not have public contact details.

Persons: Biden, Hong, Alan Estevez Organizations: Ukrainian Air Force, Anadolu Agency, Getty, Asia, Technology, U.S, Commerce Department's, of Industry, Commerce, Industry, CNBC Locations: Russia, Kyiv region, Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukrainian, Anadolu, U.S, Hong Kong, St . Petersburg, Iran, Yemen, Washington

☆ US Hits Chinese, Russian Firms Over Moscow Military Aid
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-25 | by ( Sept. | At A.M. | ) www.usnews.com time to read: +2 min

By David Shepardson and Alexandra AlperWASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden's administration on Monday imposed new trade restrictions on 11 Chinese and five Russian companies, accusing some of supplying components to make drones for Russia's war effort in Ukraine. The Commerce Department, which oversees export policy, added a total of 28 firms, including some Finnish and German companies, to a trade blacklist, making it harder for U.S. suppliers to ship them technology. The investigation found that Hong Kong-based exporter Asia Pacific Links Ltd. has been among the most important suppliers to Russia's drone program. The firm, along with import company SMT iLogic, were the target of an earlier round of U.S. sanctions in May. The United States has aggressively used a trade blacklist known as the entity list to target China's tech sector and attempt to stymie Russia's war in Ukraine.

Persons: David Shepardson, Alexandra Alper WASHINGTON, Joe Biden's, Alan Estevez, Barack Obama, Alexandra Alper, Rami Ayyub Organizations: The Commerce Department, China's, Links Ltd, Technology Center, Russia's Main Intelligence, General Staff, Reuters, Royal United Services Institute, Special Technology, Asia Pacific Links, SMT, Commerce, Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Company, Commerce Department, U.S, United Locations: Ukraine, Russian, London, St . Petersburg, Russia, Hong Kong, Iran, United States

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is embraced by U.S. President Joe Biden in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, September 21, 2023. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsWASHINGTON, Sept 25 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden's administration on Monday imposed new trade restrictions on 11 Chinese and five Russian companies, accusing some of supplying components to make drones for Russia's war effort in Ukraine. The firm, along with import company SMT iLogic, were the target of an earlier round of U.S. sanctions in May. Another six Chinese entities were added for allegedly procuring aerospace parts for the Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Company that are used to make drones used by Iran to attack oil tankers in the Middle East and by Russia in Ukraine, according to the Commerce Department. The United States has aggressively used a trade blacklist known as the entity list to target China's tech sector and attempt to stymie Russia's war in Ukraine.

Persons: Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Joe Biden, Kevin Lamarque, Joe Biden's, Alan Estevez, Barack Obama, David Shepardson, Alexandra Alper, Rami Ayyub Organizations: U.S, White, REUTERS, Rights, The Commerce Department, China's, Links Ltd, Technology Center, Russia's Main Intelligence, General Staff, Reuters, Royal United Services Institute, Special Technology, Asia Pacific Links, SMT, Commerce, Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Company, Commerce Department, United, Thomson Locations: Washington, Ukraine, Russian, London, St . Petersburg, Russia, Hong Kong, Iran, United States

WASHINGTON, April 28 (Reuters) - The Biden administration outlined efforts this week to address growing U.S. national security concerns on foreign companies' handling of Americans' data. Concerns about Chinese-owned TikTok have sparked new efforts in Congress to boost powers to address it or potentially ban the popular short video sharing app. Under Commerce Secretary for Industry and Security Alan Estevez was among those addressing information and communications technology supply (ICTS) chain threats, the department said. "I think it is a top priority and we need to move with urgency," U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said at a Senate hearing on Wednesday of the legislative effort. Days before then President Donald Trump left office in 2021, the Commerce Department issued aimed at addressing ICTS concerns posed by China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela.

☆ Exclusive: Nvidia's plans for sales to Huawei imperiled if U.S. tightens Huawei curbs-draft
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-04 | by ( Alexandra Alper | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/3] The logo of Nvidia Corporation is seen during the annual Computex computer exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan May 30, 2017. Nvidia's plans to sell to Huawei have not been previously reported. Reuters could not learn the details of the specific policy change whose impact was being assessed in the report. The report suggested Qualcomm would likely suffer a "moderate economic impact" from the change in policy, in contrast to Huawei. Indeed, the loss of access to Qualcomm's modem chips would have a bigger impact on Huawei, the report forecast, since Huawei "relies heavily on Qualcomm's modem chips to support its smart phone offering."

☆ U.S. policy allowing some U.S. tech shipments to China’s Huawei “under assessment”- U.S. official
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

Feb 28 (Reuters) - A Trump administration policy that allowed companies to ship some U.S. technology below the “5G level” to China’s blacklisted telecommunications equipment maker Huawei is “under assessment,” a key U.S. official said on Tuesday. “A licensing rule of the previous administration still stands for Huawei that allows things below 5G, below cloud level, to go, and I will say that all those things are under assessment,” U.S. Commerce Department official Alan Estevez, who oversees export control policy, said at a Congressional hearing. Reporting by Karen Freifeld and Alexandra Alper; Editing by Chizu NomiyamaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ US is reviewing Huawei export license policy amid rising congressional scrutiny of China
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

US officials have expressed concerns that Huawei’s 5G wireless networking gear could allow the Chinese government to spy on American communications. Huawei has denied that it poses a security risk, and its founder has said the company would resist any Chinese government effort to obtain its data. Confronting Estevez at Tuesday’s hearing, McCaul asked the Commerce Department to square the license approvals with the US government’s wider effort to sideline Huawei and similar companies. Separately, in 2020 the Commerce Department moved to prevent Huawei’s suppliers from selling the company semiconductor chips made by US-built software and equipment, unless those suppliers also obtained a license. Other parts of the US government have also moved against Huawei.

Feb 28 (Reuters) - The Biden administration approved more than $23 billion worth of licenses for companies to ship U.S. goods and technology to blacklisted Chinese companies in the first quarter of 2022, a Republican lawmaker said on Tuesday. The data comes amid growing pressure on the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden to further expand a broad crackdown on shipments of sensitive U.S. technology to China from Republican lawmakers, who now control the House of Representatives. The data comes a week after the Biden administration added new Chinese companies to the trade blacklist for aiding Russia’s military and months after announcing a sweeping new policy aimed at dramatically curbing shipments of chips and chipmaking tools to China. Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd was added to a trade blacklist known as the entity list by former Republican President Donald Trump in 2019, amid allegations of sanctions violations, spying capabilities, and intellectual property theft. Reporting by Karen Freifeld and Alexandra Alper; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Marguerita Choy and Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ U.S. likely to cap level of S.Korean chips made in China- U.S. official
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SEOUL, Feb 24 (Reuters) - The United States will likely limit the level of advanced semiconductors made by South Korean companies in China, a senior U.S. official said. Estevez who oversees restrictions on tech exports to China made the comments on Thursday during a forum hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix were not immediately available for comment. Earlier, an American official acknowledged the existence of a deal with Japan and the Netherlands for those countries to impose new restrictions on exports of chipmaking tools to China. read moreReporting by Ju-min Park and Heekyong Yang; Editing by Kim CoghillOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ U.S. House panel to hold hearing on policy toward China
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Karen Freifeld | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Feb 21 (Reuters) - The House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing next Tuesday with top officials on China policy to identify gaps in pursuing what it called a "more holistic approach" to countering aggression by the Chinese Communist Party. The hearing, announced by the panel's chair, Representative Michael McCaul, a Republican, is called, "Combating the Generational Challenge of CCP Aggression." Alan Estevez, the U.S. Commerce Department's under secretary for industry and security, who oversees restrictions on tech exports to China, is among the witnesses. McCaul has been pressing Estevez on the need to ensure China is not transferring U.S.-origin technology to state sponsors of terrorism, and has called for tighter restrictions on exports to blacklisted companies like China's Huawei, which are viewed as a threat to U.S. national security. Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by David GregorioOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ U.S. curbs slowly crippling Russia's military - official
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Karen Freifeld | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Feb 16 (Reuters) - A top U.S. trade official said on Thursday that export controls placed on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine have slowly reduced the supply of materials that Moscow can use to rebuild its war machine. "Evasion techniques are not going to get you the scale you need to reconstitute your military over time," Estevez said in an interview with Reuters. "It's easier to smuggle micro-electronics than it is to smuggle a CNC machine," Estevez said, referring to a computer-coded machine used for high-precision metal shaping and milling. Estevez reiterated that export controls and financial sanctions on Russia work over time, not at once. "Over time, Putin's war machine is going to be crippled, and as we continue to supply arms to Ukraine, their military capability is going up and Putin's is going down," he said.

☆ US restricts 6 Chinese companies tied to airships and balloons
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-11 | by ( Brian Rokus | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —The US Commerce Department is restricting six Chinese companies tied to the Chinese army’s aerospace programs from obtaining US technology without government authorization. US fighter jets shot down the balloon, which American officials have since claimed is part of an extensive surveillance program run by the Chinese military. The six companies are: Beijing Nanjiang Aerospace Technology; China Electronics Technology Group Corporation 48th Research Institute; Dongguan Lingkong Remote Sensing Technology; Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group; Guangzhou Tian-Hai-Xiang Aviation Technology; and Shanxi Eagles Men Aviation Science and Technology Group. The inclusion of the companies on the Commerce Department’s “Entity List,” sends “a clear message to companies, governments, and other stakeholders globally that the entities on the list present a threat to national security,” the statement said. “Today’s action makes clear that entities that seek to harm US national security and sovereignty will be cut off from accessing US technologies.”CNN has reached out to the companies involved and the Chinese government for comment.

The suspected Chinese spy balloon drifts to the ocean after being shot down off the coast in Surfside Beach, South Carolina, U.S. February 4, 2023. The U.S. slapped sanctions against six Chinese aerospace companies that it said supported the Beijing's reconnaissance balloon program, adding them to a list of companies the U.S. considers a significant national security threat. We will not hesitate to use the Entity List and our other regulatory and enforcement tools to protect U.S. national security." Last weekend, a high altitude Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina. "Today's action makes clear that entities that seek to harm U.S. national security and sovereignty will be cut off from accessing U.S.

REUTERS/Igor RussakWASHINGTON, Dec 21 (Reuters) - The Biden administration on Wednesday unveiled new curbs on technology exports to Russia's Wagner military group, in a bid to further choke off supplies to the contractor over its role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Wagner group, which was added to a trade blacklist in 2017 after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region, will now be labeled a military end user and face tough new curbs on access to technology made anywhere in the world with U.S. equipment. “The Wagner Group is one of the most notorious mercenary organizations in the world and is actively committing atrocities and human rights abuses across Ukraine,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan Estevez. The Wagner group, a private military contractor with close ties to the Kremlin, was founded in 2014 after Russia seized and annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and sparked a separatist insurgency in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. Reporting by Alexandra Alper and David Shepardson; Editing by Leslie Adler and Jonathan OatisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ U.S. slaps restrictions on Chinese chipmaker and other companies over national security worries
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Kevin Breuninger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The Biden administration said Thursday it was "severely" restricting dozens of mostly Chinese organizations, including at least one chipmaker, over their efforts to use advanced technologies to help modernize China's military. The Bureau's latest action comes more than two months after the Biden administration imposed new curbs on China's access to advanced semiconductors. "I've long sounded the alarm on the grave national security and economic threats behind YMTC and other CCP-backed technology companies, like CXMT and SMIC," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement Thursday morning. "YMTC poses an immediate threat to our national security, so the Biden Administration needed to act swiftly to prevent YMTC from gaining even an inch of a military or economic advantage," Schumer said. Four more were added due to "their significant risk of becoming involved in activities that could have a negative impact" on U.S. national security of foreign policy, according to the release.

WASHINGTON, Dec 14 (Reuters) - The Biden administration plans to remove some Chinese entities from a red flag trade list, a U.S. official told Reuters on Wednesday amid closer cooperation with Beijing. The plan to remove them soon from the so-called "unverified" list is thanks to greater willingness from the Chinese government to permit U.S. site visits, the person said. The decision, which mean U.S. exporters will no longer have to conduct additional due diligence before sending goods to the Chinese entities, may not herald a broader thaw. Companies are added to the unverified list because the United States cannot complete on-site visits to determine whether they can be trusted to receive sensitive U.S. technology exports. In October, YMTC was added to the unverified list along with dozens of other Chinese entities, fueling widespread speculation that the company would be added to the entity list.

☆ A globally critical chip firm is driving a wedge between the U.S. and Netherlands over China tech policy
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Arjun Kharpal | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

The U.S. has been putting pressure on the Netherlands to block exports to China of high-tech semiconductor equipment. The Netherlands is home to ASML, one of the most important companies in the global semiconductor supply chain. Instead, it makes and sells $200 million extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines to semiconductor manufacturers like Taiwan's TSMC. ASML has not been able to ship an EUV machine to China since 2019 due to various Dutch export restrictions, according to a company spokesperson. According to a Reuters report from 2020, the Dutch government withdrew ASML's license to export its EUV machines to China after extensive lobbying from the U.S. government.

☆ Biden administration expects near term deal with allies on China export curbs-official
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON, Oct 27 (Reuters) - The Biden administration expects to ink a deal with allies in the near-term to bring them on board with new rules curbing China's access to sophisticated chipmaking tools, a senior Commerce Department official said on Thursday. Earlier this month, the Commerce Department published a sweeping set of export controls, including measures tightly restricting Chinese access to U.S. chipmaking technology, vastly expanding its reach in its bid to slow Beijing's technological and military advances. But it faced criticism for failing to bring key allies on board with the equipment curbs, since Japanese and Dutch firms, along with U.S. companies, produce chipmaking equipment. Estevez serves as under secretary of commerce for industry and security, overseeing restrictions on exports to countries like Russia and China. Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Karen FreifeldOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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