A growing number of Chinese investments targeting US companies are stalling because of a slowdown in Washington’s national security review process, and as trade tensions rise between Beijing and Donald Trump’s administration. Lawmakers in Washington last month introduced bipartisan bills in both chambers of Congress that, if passed next year as many expect, would mark the most significant reforms in a decade of how the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (Cfius) operates, the Financial Times reports.
Cfius already has the power to block investments for national security reasons, but the draft legislation would expand its remit to include overseas joint ventures involving US-based companies. That could subject outbound US investments to heretofore unseen scrutiny. The reform push – backed by the Trump administration – is aimed largely at combating China’s growing appetite for US companies in technology and other strategic sectors. But it has coincided with an unusually protracted political transition, with most of the committee’s Trump appointees still awaiting Senate confirmation.
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