WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration expects to ink a deal with allies in the near-term to bring them on board with new rules curbing China’s access to sophisticated chipmaking tools, a senior Commerce Department official said on Thursday.
Earlier this month, the Commerce Department published a sweeping set of export controls, including measures tightly restricting Chinese access to U.S. chipmaking technology, vastly expanding its reach in its bid to slow Beijing’s technological and military advances.
But it faced criticism for failing to bring key allies on board with the equipment curbs, since Japanese and Dutch firms, along with U.S. companies, produce chipmaking equipment.
“We expect to have a deal in the near term,” Alan Estevez said in a live interview with Washington D.C. based think tank CNAS, when asked what it would take to convince allies, particularly Japan and the Netherlands, to implement similar rules.
Estevez serves as under secretary of commerce for industry and security, overseeing restrictions on exports to countries like Russia and China.
(Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Karen Freifeld)
