WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has signed a memo calling for curbs on Chinese investments in strategic sectors like technology and critical infrastructure — including restrictions by a foreign investment review panel.
The move comes at a time of growing trade tensions and strategic competition between the world’s two biggest economies.
It is aimed at promoting foreign investment, while protecting US national security interests “particularly from threats posed by foreign adversaries,” the White House said as cited by AFP.
In particular, the memo took aim at China for “increasingly exploiting United States capital to develop and modernise its military, intelligence, and other security apparatuses.”
It called for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to be used to restrict Chinese investments in key US sectors such as technology, critical infrastructure, health care and energy.
CFIUS is a panel that weighs the national security implications of foreign investments in the United States.
“President Trump is keeping his promise to prevent foreign adversaries from taking advantage of the United States,” the White House said.
A White House official, cited by Reuters news agency, said that the Trump administration will also consider new or expanded restrictions on US outbound investment to China in sensitive technologies, including semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum, biotechnology, aerospace and more.
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The steps threaten to heighten economic tensions with China after Trump increased tariffs on Chinese imports as one of his first moves in office. Trump imposed additional customs duties of 10 percent on all products imported from China at the start of this month.
CFIUS has already overseen a sharp decrease in Chinese investment in the United States.
According to the Rhodium Group, annual Chinese investment has dropped from $46 billion in 2016 to less than $5 billion in 2022.
But on Wednesday, the US president suggested that a trade deal with China was “possible.”
The order noted that foreign entities and individuals hold roughly 43 million acres of US agricultural land, which is nearly 2 percent of all land in the United States, the White House official said.
China owns more than 350,000 acres of farmland across 27 states, the official said. – Agencies
