Lutnick Says Trump Administration Told Apple It Opposes Buying Chinese Memory Chips

The Trump administration has directly told Apple that it opposes the company buying Chinese memory chips, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said, as the technology giant considers additional supply options during a global memory shortage.

“The Trump administration is not in favor of that,” Lutnick told The Wall Street Journal after visiting Apple’s manufacturing facility in Houston on Aug. 13.

Asked whether he had conveyed that position to Apple, Lutnick said, “plainly.”

Apple Chief Operating Officer Sabih Khan did not confirm reports that the company was testing Chinese memory chips.

“We have to look at all options,” Khan told the Journal, including working with Apple’s existing suppliers to increase U.S. production.

Khan said Apple customizes many components inside its products but that “there isn’t a lot of customization” for memory.

The comments follow reports that Apple has explored memory supplies from ChangXin Memory Technologies, known as CXMT, and Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., known as YMTC. Apple has not publicly confirmed the reported CXMT testing.

The Pentagon lists both companies as Chinese military companies under Section 1260H of the National Defense Authorization Act.

Security Concerns

Frank Tian Xie, a business professor at the University of South Carolina Aiken, said purchases from the Chinese manufacturers would benefit companies tied to Beijing’s military-civil fusion system.

“These companies are all connected to the Chinese Communist Party’s military-civil fusion system and related military enterprises,” Xie told NTD, a sister media outlet of The Epoch Times.

“Because their products are directly used for military purposes, purchases by U.S. companies would amount to directly subsidizing the CCP’s military and its military development,” he said. “And that military development threatens the world and the United States.”

The Pentagon says CXMT is directly affiliated with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and indirectly affiliated with that ministry and the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

YMTC is indirectly owned by the commission and indirectly affiliated with the industry ministry and the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.

The Section 1260H listing does not, by itself, amount to a blanket prohibition on private companies purchasing the firms’ products.

YMTC is separately on the Commerce Department’s Entity List. The Commerce Department added the company in December 2022, imposing licensing requirements on exports, reexports, and transfers to YMTC of items subject to U.S. export controls. Those restrictions govern items supplied or transferred to YMTC rather than imposing a general prohibition on buying finished chips from the company.

An informal Aug. 21 deadline was set by seven U.S. senators in a July 29 letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, asking the company to disclose the status of any testing or qualification involving CXMT or YMTC and whether it would rule out using memory from those companies across its global product line.

Lutnick made his comments after attending an event at Apple’s Houston facility, where he publicly praised the company’s expansion of U.S. manufacturing.

Apple has not publicly confirmed current qualification, supplier approval, purchase orders, or production use involving CXMT or YMTC memory.