Banning sales to Chinese-government-affiliated companies, apparently, is not enough. A bipartisan group of American lawmakers this week called on the Trump administration to enact a blanket ban on the sale of equipment used in the production of advanced semiconductors to all of China.
In a letter to US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the group of eight members of Congress argued that entity-specific trade restrictions were ineffective and called on the US government and its allies to enact countrywide trade restrictions on chipmaking kit.
“Critical gaps persist in our export control regime. … Certain foreign-produced chokepoint SME (semiconductor manufacturing equipment) is controlled only for certain specific entities in China, rather than on a countrywide basis,” they wrote. “Once equipment crosses the border into China, the US government has extremely limited ability to enforce end-use and end-user restrictions.”
The US has spent the better part of a decade now trying to kneecap China’s domestic semiconductor industry by limiting access to key chipmaking technologies like extreme and deep ultraviolet (EUV / DUV) lithography.
However, US export policy under the past two administrations has largely targeted specific companies like China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), rather than blocking sales at a country level.
“Entity-specific controls, while valuable, cannot substitute for countrywide restrictions on the most critical chokepoint tools,” they wrote. “We urge the administration to press allies to implement countrywide controls on key chokepoint semiconductor manufacturing equipment and subcomponents.”
The lawmakers describe “chokepoint” equipment and subcomponents as those China lacks a domestic equivalent for.
However, because the semiconductor supply chain is so diverse, many key components are made outside the US, limiting its ability to police trade. To address this, the lawmakers argue that if US allies do not align on countrywide controls, Washington should be prepared to use US-origin component restrictions to close the gaps itself.
“The United States should be prepared to act to close remaining gaps itself if necessary, including by prohibiting the use of US-origin components in the production of chokepoint tools destined to China,” the letter reads.
Equipment manufactured by the likes of the Netherlands’ ASML appears to be of particular concern for the group.
“Dutch sales to China of advanced lithography equipment — the most important chokepoint in the supply chain — doubled from 2022 to 2023 and again from 2023 to 2024,” the lawmakers wrote. “Each chokepoint tool that enters China represents a permanent loss of American leverage.”
In addition to barring sales of chipmaking gear, the lawmakers also want the Trump administration to crack down on companies that continue to service existing equipment now subject to trade restrictions in the region.
The lawmakers also warn that time is of the essence as China is working to build its homegrown chipmaking tech.
“Left unchecked, China could render US and allied export controls irrelevant by replacing foreign chipmaking tools entirely,” they said.
We’ll note that this kind of thing does tend to happen when a nation is cut off from a critical technology, but reading between the lines, the argument seems to be that the US’ failure to effectively police foreign chipmaking equipment is buying time for the Chinese to build their own. ®