Biden Chip Worries Send Stocks Plunging

No one can accuse President Joe Biden of sucking up to the tech industry as he tries to win reelection. Tech stocks slumped across the board on Wednesday after Bloomberg reported that the Biden administration is considering imposing “the most severe trade restrictions available” on Netherlands-based ASML and Japan’s Tokyo Electron in a new effort to curb China’s access to advanced chipmaking equipment. 

The report suggests the Biden administration feels measures it has taken to block exports of chip hardware to China aren’t working partly because companies like ASML—which make specialized equipment used in chip manufacturing—keep doing business with the country. The Bloomberg report dovetails with a scoop in The Information today that Biden’s chip export controls on China are being undermined by a network of cloud providers around the world that rent servers powered by Nvidia’s AI chips to Chinese customers.