September 14, 2025

Hold tight! The trade heat between China and the US just got spicier. On September 13, 2025, China hit back with not one, but two sharp probes targeting America's semiconductor sector. Why? Because of those pesky export limits and tariffs from the US that China calls an attack on its high-tech dreams. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce revealed an anti-dumping investigation focused on some common analog IC chips brought in from the US. The targeted chips include commodity interface IC chips and gate driver IC chips — made by giants like Texas Instruments and ON Semiconductor. But wait, there's more! China also launched an anti-discrimination probe into US measures that hit China's chip industry hard. This double move happens just before important talks in Spain, where US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will meet Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Madrid between Sunday and Wednesday. The stakes? Trade, national security, and even hot topics like TikTok ownership. “U.S. measures such as export curbs and tariffs constitute the containment and suppression of China's development of high-tech industries such as advanced computer chips and artificial intelligence,” said a spokesperson from China's commerce ministry. The timing is sharp: just a day earlier, the US added 23 Chinese companies to an “entity list” restricting their trade for supposed national security risks. Some of these include firms linked to China's chipmaker SMIC. These talks in Madrid continue a string of global talks in Geneva, London, and Stockholm, where both sides have paused tariff hikes to avoid a full-scale trade war. Bessent called the prior talks “very fulsome” and stressed the need to manage risks in key industries like rare earths, semiconductors, and medicine. US Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden both placed limits on China's access to key chip technology, citing security concerns. But China sees it as a move to block its growth. With chips being the heart of tomorrow's tech, these new probes could shake up the global trade game even more!

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Tags: China, Us, Semiconductor, Trade tensions, Export curbs, Chip industry,