Fri 13 October 2020:
United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning US investments in Chinese firms Washington claims are owned or controlled by the Chinese military, ramping up pressure on Beijing after the US election.
In a statement, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien said Trump “signed an Executive Order to protect American investors from funding Communist Chinese military companies, including those designated by the Department of Defense in June and August of 2020.”
Trump said in the order that “the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is increasingly exploiting United States capital to resource and enable the development and modernization of its military, intelligence and other security apparatuses.”
O’Brien said that “many of these companies are publicly traded on stock exchanges around the world, and individual investors in the United States can unknowingly provide funds to them through passive institutional investment vehicles such as mutual funds and retirement plans.”
The order will go into effect on Jan. 11.
In his executive order, Trump said he found China was “increasingly exploiting United States capital to resource and to enable the development and modernization of its military, intelligence, and other security apparatuses, which continues to allow the PRC to directly threaten the United States homeland and United States forces overseas”.
The move indicates Trump, who was defeated by Biden in the November 3 election, is seeking to take advantage of the waning months of his administration to ramp up pressure on Beijing.
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