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Lutnick tells Apple the US opposes buying CXMT and YMTC memory chips

Lutnick tells Apple the US opposes buying CXMT and YMTC memory chips

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said he told Apple "plainly" that the Trump administration opposes sourcing memory from CXMT and YMTC, a day after touring Apple's Houston manufacturing center with Tim Cook. YMTC sits on the Commerce Entity List and the Pentagon designates both firms as Chinese military companies, so Apple's route out of the global memory shortage now excludes the cheapest supply — and its $600B domestic-manufacturing pledge did not buy an exemption.

Source: 9to5mac.com ↗

Post on XEmail

The Trump administration is not in favor of that — there have to be "other solutions to the memory issue, but it's not great American companies using Chinese memory."

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick

Why this matters

  • → Apple's $600B domestic pledge doesn't exempt it from chip restrictions.
  • → Forced reliance on costlier allies (Samsung, SK Hynix) pressures pricing.
  • → Signals hardening US tech-supply-chain isolationism under Trump.
Supply chain showdown