Committee member presses administration on allies' sales to Chinese memory maker CXMT

At a House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing, a committee member pressed an agency official on steps the administration will take after reports that U.S. export controls prevent American companies from selling semiconductor technology to Chinese memory maker CXMT while allied firms continue to supply the company.

The committee member drew attention to what they called a troubling disparity in allied behavior, saying, "Key Dutch company ASML even has a friendship garden, whatever the hell that is, with CXMT," and asking, "So I wanna know what are you going to do about it and what's the administration gonna do about it?" The question framed the concern as one of enforcement and allied coordination: if U.S. firms are restricted while others are not, the member said, that weakens U.S. policy objectives.

An agency official responding for the administration said the issue is a major concern and confirmed that U.S. companies are barred from selling to CXMT. "Well, I agree with you that this is a major concern," the agency official said. "And you're right that our companies aren't able to sell to CXMT. And, we're concerned. I'm concerned about the article that you mentioned, and we raise it directly with our counterparts in including in in The Netherlands. And I was in The Netherlands a couple of weeks ago, raising these concerns. We are we continue to seek alignment. We continue to insist that the backfilling by foreign companies and foreign countries and export control stop, and we're not going to rest until we achieve that."

The exchange did not produce a formal vote or a specific new legal measure. The agency official described ongoing diplomatic engagement — meetings with foreign counterparts and a recent trip to the Netherlands — and said the administration will continue pressing allies to align their export practices and to prevent "backfilling" of restricted technology.

The committee member's question and the official's response highlight a central enforcement challenge for export-controls policy: U.S. restrictions can be undermined if other countries' companies supply the same technology to targeted firms. The administration said it has raised the issue at the diplomatic level and will keep seeking alignment with allies; the hearing record contains no new announced legal action or timetable for further steps.