Lawmakers Urge Trump Admin to Exercise Leverage Over China With Chipmaking Equipment Controls

A bipartisan group of lawmakers wants to work with the Trump administration to limit China’s access to equipment that could enable it to achieve self-sufficiency in advanced chipmaking. The chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) led the group in writing to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Feb. 9. They urged the officials to “urgently work to close the remaining critical gaps in our control regime through vigorous engagement with our allies.” The lawmakers say this manufacturing equipment—which is highly specialized and largely sourced from a few key companies worldwide—represents “one of America’s most significant points of leverage” in competing with China....