United States ‘won’t accept’ China’s embargo on Micron semiconductors, says commerce secretary

According to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, the United States “won’t tolerate” China’s effective ban on sales of Micron Technology memory chips and is working closely with partners to confront such “economic coercion.”

In the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework negotiations, which are being headed by the United States, Raimondo said at a press conference that the United States “firmly opposes” China’s measures against Micron.

These “target one U.S. company without any factual foundation, and we see it as plain and simple economic coercion and we won’t tolerate it, nor do we think it will succeed.”

The largest manufacturer of memory chips in the United States, Micron, was informed on May 21 by China’s cyberspace authority that it had failed a network security examination and would be prohibited from selling to operators of critical infrastructure, which caused the business to project a decline in revenue.

The action was taken a day after Raimondo underlined that leaders of the G-7 industrial democracies had committed to additional steps to counter China’s economic coercion.

We are closely collaborating with partners to address this particular difficulty and other concerns relating to China’s nonmarket behaviors, as we said at the G-7 and as we have stated repeatedly.

In a meeting with Wang Wentao, China’s minister of commerce, on Thursday, Raimondo also brought up the Micron problem.

She said that the $52 billion CHIPS Act, which the US invested in to promote semiconductor industry in the country, would be compatible with the IPEF agreement on supply chains and other key elements of the discussions.

“The CHIPS Act investments intended to boost and support our domestic semiconductor manufacture. Having said that, we encourage involvement from businesses based in IPEF nations, therefore we anticipate that firms from Singapore, Korea, Japan, and other nations will take part in CHIPS Act financing, Raimondo added.