U.S. Shelves Plan to Add DeepSeek and Over 100 Other Companies to Export Control Blacklist
Taylor Wilson
The U.S. has frozen plans to add DeepSeek, CXMT, and over a hundred other companies to the Entity List despite inter-agency approval — trade-negotiation priorities are effectively sidelining a core national-security tool.
What exactly happened to the Entity List?
The Entity List — a U.S. government blacklist that cuts listed companies off from American technology — has not added a single new entry since October 2024, the longest gap in over a decade.
This means → the list still exists on paper, but it has stopped functioning in practice. Approved additions sit unpublished; the tool is idle.
Reuters cited sources saying Jeffrey Kessler, head of the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, has actively avoided listing Chinese entities since late 2025, fearing further escalation with Beijing.
Which companies are frozen on the waiting list?
DeepSeek (a Chinese AI startup) and CXMT (China's leading DRAM chipmaker) are the highest-profile names — both cleared by the inter-agency committee but never published.
Also waiting: dozens of firms that sold restricted Nvidia chips to Chinese universities, companies making military drones and robot dogs, and firms that supplied drone parts to Russia — wreckage from those drones was found in Poland last September.
In plain terms = the backlog is not just about AI. It spans military, intelligence, chip resale, and Russia-linked arms supply — all stuck in "approved but not enforced" limbo.
How serious are the security concerns around DeepSeek and CXMT?
A senior State Department official told Reuters that DeepSeek supported Chinese military and intelligence operations and tried to illegally obtain advanced U.S. chips through Southeast Asian shell companies.
Anthropic disclosed that DeepSeek and two other Chinese AI labs attempted to extract capabilities from its Claude platform; OpenAI flagged similar behavior to Congress.
CXMT was already designated a Chinese military company by the Pentagon under the Biden administration. Commerce Department discussions on listing it have been ongoing for more than a year.
This means → the security case against both firms is not new — it was fully processed and just waiting for publication.
Why the freeze? Trade talks vs. national security — which wins?
Former Commerce official Kevin Kurland said bluntly: "Trade policy is overriding a critical national-security tool."
He warned that the freeze risks letting U.S. technology keep flowing to adversaries.
Philip Luck of the Center for Strategic and International Studies compared the Entity List to "a game of whack-a-mole" — it only works if you keep swinging. Stop, and the targets slip through.
What to watch next?
The core tension is now in the open: short-term trade-negotiation needs vs. long-term credibility of export controls.
This reflects an internal split in the Trump administration's China strategy — security hawks want tighter controls, while the negotiating team needs bargaining chips and breathing room.
In plain terms = the longer the tool stays idle, the higher the policy cost of restarting it; but a sudden mass listing could shatter the fragile balance of ongoing trade talks.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.