The United States considered last year blocking the export of Taiwanese microchips to Russia due to its war in Ukraine but ultimately decided against doing so, said U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Feb. 23.
“A year ago, we led a coalition of 36 countries to align export controls against Russia,” said Raimondo at an event at Georgetown University in Washington.
“We could have done … we have the tools to do the extraterritorial controls,” she continued. “And I thought about it.”
However, said Raimondo, the Biden administration instead decided to defer to U.S. allies regarding export controls.
“Semiconductors, for example, almost all of the semiconductors made in Taiwan are made with American machinery and software. So technically, we could have said to Taiwan, ‘You can’t sell any of that to Russia because if you do, you can’t use our hardware and software,” she said….