(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden has added more Chinese companies and individuals to an export blacklist than any US administration, as growing frictions between the world’s biggest economies continue to complicate global trade.
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The Commerce Department added six Chinese companies to its entity list on Thursday, bringing the tally of new targets during the Biden administration to 319. That compares to the 306 entities added during Donald Trump’s time in the White House, when he oversaw a trade war with Beijing that hurt both countries’ economies.
The milestone exemplifies how the US government is increasingly using economic tools to achieve foreign policy goals, as Biden tries to kneecap China’s access to cutting-edge chips and technology, citing national security concerns. President Xi Jinping’s growing assertiveness toward Taiwan, which he claims as part of China’s territory, has increased concerns in Washington that Beijing will use American technology to advance its military prowess.
“Being tough on China, including through the restriction of its access to technology, is a theme that has bipartisan agreement,” said Alfredo Montufar-Helu, head of the Conference Board’s China Center. With a US election in November, both sides “have incentives during these months of campaigning to show themselves as being as strong on China,” he said.
Biden has left in place Trump’s tariffs while adding to those measures, with a specific focus on curbs that block Beijing’s access to innovations capable of a wide swathe of applications, including those in the critical artificial intelligence sector.
In February, the US added eight companies to the entity list, quietly taking Biden past Trump’s record, with six more added this week. The entity list has increasingly become one of Washington’s main weapons for sanctioning and punishing people, companies or other organizations in China and elsewhere on national security grounds.
Beijing has branded that policy an attempt to thwart its development. Imposing export controls on Chinese companies “is typical economic coercion and unilateral bullying behavior,” He Yadong, spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, said at a briefing in Beijing on Thursday when asked about the latest US actions.