Pak firms added to US export blacklist

The United States added 80 companies and institutes from Pakistan, China and four other countries to its export control list to prevent the US technologies and goods from being "misused" for missiles and other military activities, the Commerce Department said in a posting on Tuesday.

According to a New York Times report, the Trump administration added 54 companies and organisations from China to the Commerce Department's Entity List, as well as more than two dozen from Iran, Pakistan, South Africa, the United Arab Emirate (UAE) and Taiwan.

"The added entities had made contributions to Pakistani nuclear activities and its missile program, advanced China's quantum technology capabilities and hypersonic weapons development, and tried to circumvent US controls on Iran, among other actions, the administration said.

The blacklisted companies from China included six subsidiaries of Inspur Group – a leading cloud computing and big data service provider – for contributing to the development of supercomputers for Chinese military, it said. Five of the subsidiaries are based in China and one in Taiwan.

Inspur Group itself was placed on the list in 2023. The listings are intended to restrict China's ability to develop high-performance computing capabilities, quantum technologies and advanced AI, and impede China's development of its hypersonic weapons programme, the department said.

The trade blacklist also included the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence. "We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said.

"The aim is to prevent US technologies and goods from being misused for activities like high performance computing, hypersonic missiles and military aircraft training and UAVs (drones) that threaten our national security," said Under Secretary of Commerce Jeffrey Kessler.

China's foreign ministry said Beijing would take necessary measures to safeguard the interests of the Chinese enterprises. The move is "not conducive to creating an atmosphere for the two sides to solve problems through dialog and cooperation," China's commerce ministry said in a statement.

The Chinese embassy in Washington said that it firmly opposed "these acts taken by the US and demand that it immediately stop using military-related issues as pretexts to politicise, instrumentalise and weaponise trade and tech issues."

By imposing sanctions on more firms, the US also sought to disrupt Iran's procurement of drones and related defence items and prevented development of its ballistic missile programme and un-safeguarded nuclear activities.

The US adds companies to the Entity List for national security or foreign policy concerns. The companies could not sell goods to those listed without applying for and obtaining licenses, which are likely to be denied.

(WITH ADDITIONAL INPUT FROM NEWS DESK)