Donald Trump has blocked the $1.3bn acquisition of a US semiconductor company by investors including a state-backed Chinese investment fund, rejecting an appeal from the group for him to overturn a government review that found the deal posed a threat to US national security.
Wednesday’s move marked only the fourth time that a president has blocked a corporate acquisition on national security grounds and the first known time that Mr Trump has intervened personally to block a deal. It comes amid growing scrutiny of Chinese investments in the US and Europe and calls for Washington to toughen its rules governing foreign investment, while Beijing has been making a strategic push to acquire new technologies.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (Cfius) found that Lattice Semiconductor’s acquisition by a group of investors including the state-controlled China Venture Capital Fund posed a threat to US national security — but in a regulatory filing earlier this month, the publicly traded chipmaker said it was appealing to Mr Trump to overturn the ruling.
