© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The corporate logo appears on the offices of Micron Technology Inc. In Shanghai, China, May 25, 2023. REUTERS/Ali Song
By David Lauder
DETROIT (Reuters) – U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Saturday that the United States “will not tolerate” China’s effective ban on purchases of Micron Technology’s (NASDAQ) memory chips and that it is working closely with allies to counter such “economic coercion.” .
The United States “strongly opposes” China’s actions against Micron, Raimondo said at a press conference following a meeting of trade ministers under the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework Talks.
These are “targeted at a single American company without any basis in fact, and we see it as economic coercion plain and simple that we will not tolerate, nor do we think it will be successful.”
China’s cyberspace regulator said May 21 that Micron, the largest maker of memory chips in the US, had failed its network security audit and would block major infrastructure operators from buying from the company, leading it to forecast lower revenue.
The move came a day after the leaders of the G7 industrial democracies approved new initiatives to counter economic coercion from China – a decision Raimondo referred to.
“As we have said at the G7 and as we have said consistently, we are engaging closely with partners to address this specific challenge and all challenges related to China’s non-market practices.”
Raimondo also raised the issue of Micron in a meeting Thursday with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.
She also said the IPEF agreement on supply chains and other pillars of the talks would be consistent with US investments in the $52 billion CHIPS Act to boost US semiconductor production.
“The investments in the CHIPS Act are aimed at strengthening and enhancing our domestic production of semiconductors. Having said that, we welcome the participation of companies located in IPEF countries, as you know, so we expect that companies from Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc., will participate in the financing of the CHIPS Act,” he said. Raymondo.