The 24 companies added to a government list that bans them from buying American products included the China Communications Construction Company
The Trump administration added 24 Chinese companies to a trade blacklist for helping China build islands in the South China Sea, a construction program the United States has labeled an illegal attempt to control an important shipping route.
The blacklist, known as the Entity List, has become a favorite Trump administration tool to crack down on China and now includes more than 300 Chinese entities.
The Commerce Department, which maintains the list, has previously used it against Chinese telecom company Huawei and against Chinese entities engaged in alleged human rights violations in China’s Xinjiang region.
The trade sanction bars U.S. companies from exporting products to the targets without a government license. The latest listed entities include Chinese state-owned defense contractors that engage in little trade with the United States — total U.S. exports to the companies amounted to $5 million over the past five years, senior administration officials said Wednesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive trade matters.
But the officials said they hoped the sanctions would have a wider impact by discouraging other countries from engaging with the companies through China’s Belt and Road program, which builds infrastructure in developing nations.
The newly listed firms, including the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) and the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, are big contractors in the Belt and Road initiative, which in building bridges, dams and digital infrastructure around the world has come under international criticism for saddling recipient countries with too much debt.
The 24 companies added to a government list that bans them from buying American products included the China Communications Construction Company
