Raimondo says US ‘trying to choke’ China’s military capacity with superconductor limits

Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in an interview that aired Sunday that the United States will not be selling its advanced superconductor chips to China for their “military capacity.”

NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Raimondo on “Meet the Press” if the U.S. would be exporting superconductor chips to China “in a way that China doesn’t feel we’re trying to choke their military technology.”

Raimondo instead said that capping their military capacity is exactly what the U.S. wants to do.

“We are trying to choke their military capacity,” Raimondo said. “So if they feel that, that means our strategy’s working. Certainly on my watch, we are not going to sell the most sophisticated American chip to China that they want for their military capacity.”

Raimondo visited Beijing last week to after months of rising tensions between the two countries. She also told Todd that the U.S. “will have a large, deep, best-in-the-world semiconductor ecosystem” by the end of the decade.

“We need to get back into the business of actually manufacturing leading edge chips here and packaging leading edge chips here,” she said. “And yes, we will, by the end of this decade, have regained prominence and have that deep ecosystem, including research and development, here in the U.S.”

She also noted that before her trip that she was hacked by Chinese actors, describing the relationship between the two countries as “complicated.”

“They did hack me, which was unappreciated, to say the least,” she said. “I brought it up, clearly. Put it right on the table. By the way, I brought up many of our grievances on behalf of our national security concerns, concerns of U.S. labor, concerns of U.S. business. Didn’t pull any punches.”