US Holds Off Blacklisting DeepSeek as 100+ Firms Await Entity List Decision

The United States has held off adding Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and more than 100 other companies flagged as national security risks to a trade blacklist, Reuters reported on June 17, citing two people familiar with the matter.

Approved, but not published

According to the report, DeepSeek, CXMT and the other firms were approved by an interagency committee last year for addition to the Commerce Department's Entity List. Reuters said that approval is being reported for the first time, as is the unusually large number of companies still waiting to be published.

Companies on the Entity List cannot receive U.S. goods, software and technology without a license, which is likely to be denied. The list has not been updated since October, the longest stretch in more than a decade. According to one source, the companies tagged but not yet listed include suppliers of components found in Russian drones recovered in Poland.

Why DeepSeek and CXMT drew scrutiny

DeepSeek's low-cost AI model sent shockwaves through the technology world in January 2025. A senior State Department official told Reuters last year that the startup had supported China's military and intelligence operations, and had tried to use Southeast Asian shell companies to illegally obtain advanced American chips.

This year Anthropic said it identified a campaign by DeepSeek and two other Chinese AI labs to illicitly extract capabilities from its Claude platform, while OpenAI warned lawmakers that DeepSeek was also targeting its models. CXMT, China's largest memory chipmaker, was designated a Chinese military company by the Defense Department under the Biden administration, and Commerce considered adding it to the Entity List more than a year ago.

A signal of restraint

The delay is being read as an attempt by the Trump administration to avoid escalating tensions with Beijing. DeepSeek and CXMT could not be reached for comment outside normal business hours, and the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, which oversees the list, did not directly answer questions about the pause in updates or about the two companies.

Reuters notes that the absence of new listings is likely to leave more American goods and technology in the hands of adversaries.