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

In the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework negotiations, which are being headed by the United States, Raimondo stated at a news 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, a G7 industrial democracy leader, announced fresh steps to counter China’s economic coercion.

“As we said at the G7 and as we have said consistently, we are closely engaging with partners addressing this specific challenge and all challenges related to China’s non-market practices.”

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

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

“The investments in the CHIPS Act are to strengthen and bolster our domestic production of semiconductors. Having said that, we welcome participation from companies that are in IPEF countries, you know, so we expect that companies from Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc, will participate in the CHIPS Act funding,” Raimondo said.

(Adapted from BusinessToday.in)

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