Apart from his plans of adding a campaign event to go along with president-elect Joe Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20, the Trump administration is also set to add China's leading microchip maker SMIC, only this time it's on his blacklist of companies that he deems unsafe for U.S. national security.
Another Chinese company, the offshore oil and gas producer CNOOC, will join SMIC on the blacklist of companies the U.S. claims has ties with China's military, sources said.
Their addition -- along with China International Engineering Consulting Corp., and China Construction Technology Co. -- would bring the total number of companies blacklisted by the U.S. to 35.
SMIC is the largest contract producer of semiconductors and China and secured over $7 billion to expand in a Shanghai stock offering in July.
State-owned CNOOC is among Exxon Mobil's partners in its Guyana project, has shares in a Royal Dutch Shell Plc LNG export terminal in Australia, and has stakes in the U.K. North Sea's Buzzard oil field, Bloomberg reported.
The move is expected to restrict their access to American investors and escalating frictions with Beijing weeks before Biden is sworn into office. A recent directive ordered by Trump would bar U.S. investors from acquiring securities of the listed companies starting 2021.
In a separate report by Reuters last week, the Trump administration was close to releasing a list of 89 Chinese aviation and other companies that would be banned from accessing American technology because of their military connections.
According to SMIC, the company continues to engage "constructively and openly with the U.S. government" and that its services and products were exclusively for commercial and civilian use, CNBC reported. SMIC -- which was already in Washington's crosshairs -- asserted that it has no ties with China's military, the report said.
The Chinese consulate in Washington, CNOOC and the U.S. Defense Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
