Apple lobbies Trump administration for clearance to buy memory chips from blacklisted Chinese company CXMT as memory costs quadruple

Apple has embarked on a lobbying push in Washington, asking the Trump administration for explicit approval to purchase memory chips from ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), a Chinese semiconductor manufacturer the Pentagon lists as a Chinese military company, according to six people familiar with the discussions cited by the Financial Times.

The lobbying campaign

Apple first approached the US Commerce Department more than a month ago, and executives have since been talking to other administration officials and allies in Washington. The goal is not just legal clearance (buying from CXMT is not explicitly banned), but a broader guarantee that the company will not be placed on the Commerce Department's Entity List, a far more restrictive blacklist that would make purchases effectively impossible.

Apple choosing to partner with a Chinese military company would be a grave mistake.

John Moolenaar, the Republican chair who leads Congressional efforts to investigate China's geopolitical influence, signalled sharp opposition. The Financial Times notes that Congress is expected to object if the administration agrees.

The memory crunch behind the prices

Apple raised prices across its Mac, iPad, and home device lineups on June 25, adding between $100 and $500 per product. A MacBook Air 13-inch went from $1,099 to $1,299, a MacBook Pro 16-inch from $2,499 to $2,999, and the Vision Pro climbed by $500. Apple blamed memory costs it called unsustainable.

The moves wiped $263 billion from Apple's market capitalisation, its second-largest single-day drop in history, with shares falling more than 6 percent. Memory chip prices have quadrupled over the past three quarters, according to Counterpoint Research, because the dominant suppliers (Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron) have shifted wafer capacity from consumer DRAM to high-bandwidth memory for AI data centre chips.

During an April earnings call, Tim Cook warned the shortage would worsen before it eased.

CXMT: a politically sensitive supplier

CXMT, China's largest DRAM maker, already supplies DDR5 memory to Western brands such as Corsair at prices that undercut the three major manufacturers. Its position on the Pentagon's 1260H list carries no immediate trade ban, but creates significant reputational risk and could be a precursor to Entity List designation.

The Commerce Department had already included CXMT in a package of firms it wanted to add to the Entity List last year, but the White House instructed it to hold off during tense negotiations with Beijing over a possible ceasefire in the trade and rare earths war. That pause came before a recent Trump-Xi summit in Beijing and a previous meeting in South Korea in October 2025.

What Apple is asking for

Apple is not currently barred from buying CXMT chips. What it wants, according to FT sources, is a guarantee that the supplier will not later be placed on the Entity List. Most people familiar with the talks say it is unclear whether the administration will offer such a promise, especially after Trump last year allowed Nvidia to sell advanced H200 chips to China over the objections of many of his own officials.