US President Donald Trump on Wednesday blocked a Chinese government-financed firm’s acquisition of an Oregon semiconductor maker on national security grounds.
A US federal panel that reviews foreign investment in the US for possible security threats ruled against the proposed US$1.3 billion purchase of Lattice Semiconductor last week.
The deal has been under scrutiny since it became clear the buyer, Canyon Bridge Capital Partners, is funded by the Chinese government.
Photo: AFP
Chinese companies are on a global buying spree to acquire technology and brands. Most acquisitions in the US and Europe go through without incident, but some purchases of high-tech companies have prompted criticism they might represent security threats or the loss of important national assets.
“Credible evidence leads me to believe” the buyers of Lattice “might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States,” Trump said in his order.
A statement from the White House press secretary cited the importance of “semiconductor supply chain integrity” to US security, the Chinese government’s role in supporting the transaction and the potential transfer of intellectual property to a foreign buyer.
It was just the fourth time in a quarter century that a US president has ordered a foreign takeover of an American firm stopped on national security concerns.
Trump has expressed concern about the status of US manufacturing and its ability to meet national security needs.
In July, he issued an order for a review to be led by the US Department of Defense. He also has asked the US Department of Commerce to look into whether to raise tariffs on imported steel on national security grounds.
Following Trump’s announcement, Lattice said it was canceling the proposed sale.
Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng (高峰) yesterday told a media briefing in Beijing, that China is concerned over the matter and that the US should create a fair and transparent business environment.
“Conducting security checks on a sensitive investment is a nation’s legitimate right, but it shouldn’t be used as a protectionist tool,” Gao said, adding that the acquisition is a corporate decision that the US should evaluate objectively.
Lattice manufactures a relatively low-tech class of programmable computer chips that can be adapted for a variety of uses. It had 1,000 employees worldwide at the end of the last year, but that number dwindled after Lattice sold a division in India and laid off workers.
In December last year, the German government blocked the Chinese purchase of a chipmaker, Aixtron SE, after then-US president Barack Obama prohibited the buyer from taking over its California subsidiary on national security grounds.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS