WITH CHINESE CHIP COMPANIES THREATENING NATIONAL SECURITY AND JOBS, SCHUMER ANNOUNCES PRESIDENT HAS HEEDED HIS CALL AND WILL ADD YMTC – ONE OF CHINA’S LEADING CHIP MAKERS – TO A TRADE BLACKLIST; ADMINISTRATION ACTION WILL STRENGTHEN NATIONAL SECURITY AND PROTECT THE DOMESTIC CHIP INDUSTRY
With Upstate NY Growing As a Global Hub For The Microchip Industry, Thanks To Schumer’s Historic CHIPS And Science Law, Feds Just Delivered A New Protection To Limit Chinese Growth In The Semiconductor Industry And Help Ensure More Microchips Are Made In Places Like Upstate NY, Not China
For Months, Schumer Highlighted How China’s YMTC Posed An Immediate Threat To Our National Security; Now They Are Added To Ban List Along With Other Chinese Communist Party-Backed Companies
Schumer: Today’s Action Will Protect Our National Security And Our Domestic Chip Manufacturers To Help Make The Future In Places Like Syracuse, Not Shanghai
On the heels of his all-out push started in Albany and Syracuse to limit Chinese chip companies in U.S. supply chains, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer today announced, that after months of advocacy, the Biden administration has added Chinese memory chipmaker Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) and dozens of other Chinese companies to a trade blacklist, restricting U.S. exports of advanced U.S. technology that could be used by these companies to advance the Chinese Communist Party’s military and economic agenda. This builds on Schumer successfully securing the inclusion of his bipartisan amendment last week to prohibit the U.S. government’s use of chips made in China, including by YMTC, in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023. Schumer said that today’s action, combined with his amendment, will help limit the prevalence of Chinese-made chips in U.S. supply chains, strengthening national security, keeping New Yorkers’ data safe, and boosting demand for more domestically made microchips, including from places like Upstate New York.
“By adding China’s YMTC to the trade blacklist, the Biden administration is taking a much-needed action to protect national security and send a clear signal that the future of technology should be made in America in places like Syracuse not Shanghai, in the Capital Region not China. I’ve long sounded the alarm on the grave national security and economic threats posed by YMTC and other CCP-backed technology companies, like CXMT and SMIC,” said Senator Schumer. “Because of my CHIPS and Science bill, Upstate New York is seeing unprecedented investment and thousands of new jobs rebuilding American microchip manufacturing. To win the 21st century we need to secure our supply chains, and this decisive action by the Biden administration, in tandem with my amendment in the NDAA and the major investment from the CHIPS bill, will help level the playing field for Upstate NY chip manufacturers and put our national security, privacy, and defense first.”
Schumer said that YMTC is one of China’s largest chipmakers, and that their inclusion to the U.S. export blacklist, along with other major Chinese companies, will limit the CCP’s ability to expand their military and technological capabilities, protecting our national security and domestic investment in technology.
Schumer explained that semiconductors are essential not only in our daily lives, with microchips being used in everything from smartphones and household appliances to cars, but also is vital to our national security with our military technology and critical infrastructure fully reliant on these chips.
This announcement comes on the heels of Schumer’s bipartisan amendment, introduced with Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), that was just included in the NDAA to limit the U.S. government use of semiconductors from Chinese companies. Specifically, Schumer’s amendment will limit the federal procurement of products or services that use microchips produced by three major Chinese suppliers, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), and Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC), all with known links to Chinese state security and intelligence apparatuses. This provision will help reduce the U.S. dependence on China and protect national security by ensuring that the U.S. government, its suppliers, and U.S. taxpayers do not directly or indirectly fund the Chinese military. This provision will also help ensure that chips produced by Chinese chipmakers cannot be weaponized in products sold to the U.S. Government, and will help position Upstate New York to supply more chips needed by our military and other critical infrastructure by replacing Chinese-made chips in the supply chains of companies that do business with the U.S. government.
Schumer has been the leading champion of bringing semiconductor manufacturing back to America and has a long history of fighting to secure microchip investment for Upstate New York. Going back to 2019, Schumer proposed a major tech investment “moon shot” in cutting-edge technologies like semiconductors to out-compete China. Schumer then spent the next three years working to pass into law this vision – ultimately manifesting itself into the CHIPS and Science Act, which makes a generational investment in innovation and manufacturing, including providing over $52 billion in new federal incentives for microchip manufacturing and research and development in the U.S., along with the creation of a new federal investment tax credit to support the expansion of domestic microchip production.
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