More US senators on Friday raised concerns about a Chinese company’s plan to buy US pork company Smithfield Foods Inc, particularly in light of restrictions that China continues to place on imports of US meat.
“This review must be thorough and take into account the full range of national security interests,” the top Democrat and Republican on the US Senate Finance Committee said in a letter to US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and US Trade Representative Michael Froman.
“In particular, we urge that due consideration be given to the impact of the transaction on food safety in the United States,” added Senators Max Baucus, a Democrat and the committee’s chairman, and Orrin Hatch, a Republican.
That echoed a demand made on Thursday by 15 of the 20 members of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
Chinese meat company Shuanghui International (雙匯國際) hopes to buy Smithfield, the world’s largest pork producer and processor, for US$4.7 billion in what would be the biggest takeover of a US company by a Chinese firm.
The companies, out of what lawyers said was “an abundance of caution,” filed the proposed deal with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews foreign investment for any potential threat to national security.
Many CFIUS experts believe it is unlikely the Obama administration will decide that Chinese investment in the US food sector is a national security threat.
“I think the Chinese will bring home the bacon,” said Timothy Keeler, a former US Treasury and trade official who now advises companies with deals that go before CFIUS.
In a statement on Thursday, Smithfield said it welcomed a full review of the deal and would continue to cooperate with the administration and the US Congress in that effort.
“We believe the proposed combination does not present any national security concerns, is good for US farmers and agriculture, and will advance US-China relations,” a spokeswoman for Smithfield said.
Baucus and Hatch said the proposed sale threw a spotlight on longtime Chinese restrictions on US meat and urged the Obama administration to aggressively push back on those measures.
“The purchase of Smithfield — the largest pork producer in the world — is difficult to square with China’s restrictive policies that effectively ban US pork,” the senators said.
China currently bans imports of pork containing any residue of ractopamine, a feed additive used widely in the US with backing from the Codex Alimentarius, the international food safety standards body.
It also blocks imports of almost all US beef because of mad cow disease concerns, despite a finding by the World Animal Health Organization that US beef is safe.
“As a result, while Chinese meat producers are free to bid on US companies accounting for a significant share of US pork production, our producers remain shut out of the important Chinese market,” the senators said.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the