US Fires Beard, Rejects China's Ban On Buying Micron Memory Chips

United States Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo (photo: twitter @SecRaimondo)

JAKARTA - The United States Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, stated that the United States "will not tolerate" the effective ban imposed by China on the purchase of Micron Technology memory chips and is working closely with allies to address such "economic pressures".

The statement was made by Raimondo in a press conference following a meeting of the minister of trade in the United States-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework negotiations, in which he firmly expressed United States opposition to China's actions against Micron.

China officially stated on May 21 that Micron, the United States' largest memory chipmaker, failed a network security review and would block infrastructure operators from buying products from the company, potentially causing a decline in revenue for Micron.

This action was taken one day after the leaders of the G7 industry democracy agreed to take a new initiative to withstand the economic pressure from China This decision was also recorded by Raimondo. He called China's actions "targeting a US company without a fact, and we see it as a simple economic pressure and we will not tolerate, and we think the action will not succeed."

Raimondo also discussed Micron's issue in a meeting with Chinese Trade Minister Wang Wentao on Thursday, May 15.

In addition, Raimondo stated that the IPEF agreement on supply chains and other pillars of the negotiations would be consistent with US investment in the 52 billion $ CHIPS Act (IDR 780.4 trillion) to encourage semiconductor production in the United States.

"Investment in the CHIPS Act is to strengthen and increase our domestic semiconductor production. Even so, we welcome the participation of companies originating from IPEF countries. We expect companies from Japan, Korea, Singapore, and so on, to participate in the funding for the CHIPS Act," Raimondo said.