WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Trump administration cancels plans to blacklist Chinese tech giants Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu, said four people familiar with the matter, offering a brief postponement to Beijing’s largest corporations amid crackdown wider Washington.
Senior government officials were considering plans to add the companies to a list of alleged Chinese military companies, which would subject them to a new US investment ban.
But Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is widely seen as taking a more penetrating stance on China, pushed back, freezing plans, people said. Even so, the Trump administration plans to move forward this week with an attempt to add up to nine other Chinese companies to the list, one of the people said.
The Treasury, State Departments and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The abrupt decision eases Washington’s deep divisions over China’s policy, even as outgoing President Donald Trump tries to cement his tough legacy on China and block out President-elect Joe Biden in aggressive measures against China. -the second largest economy in the world.
Last month, the White House blacklisted China’s largest chip maker, SMIC, and oil giant CNOOC, as first reported by Reuters. Trump also unveiled an executive order in January banning U.S. transactions with eight Chinese applications, including Alipay Ant Group.
While Trump supported a trade deal between rival nations, relations between Washington and Beijing worsened last year due to China’s handling of the deadly coronavirus and the crackdown on freedoms in Hong Kong.
Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Humeyra Pamuk; Written by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Leslie Adler