U.S. Restricts Trade With Chinese Genomics Company
The Trump administration on Wednesday added BGI, a major Chinese genomics company that U.S.officials have long eyed with suspicion, to a trade blacklist aimed at barring products made with forced labor in China.BGI will be prohibited from shipping goods to the United States under criteria a 2021 law established.In recent years, both Democrats and Republicans have called out and imposed sanctions on BGI, saying its close ties to Beijing and its access to sprawling genetic data pose a threat to U.S.
national security.U.S.
officials have also linked BGI subsidiaries to abuses in the Xinjiang region of China, including conducting genetic analyses of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities.BGI did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday morning.The company has previously said it performs work “for civilian and scientific purposes only,” denying that it poses a risk to U.S.
national security or collects Americans’ genetic information.BGI sells DNA sequencing machines and operates laboratories that crunch genetic data on behalf of academic researchers and drug companies around the world.The company, which has a laboratory in San Jose, Calif., and offices in Massachusetts, does not directly market its sequencers and the chemicals involved in that process in the United States, though experts say the company has found backdoor avenues to ship them.
Over the years, it has announced partnerships with several American companies and universities.The move is likely to be considered an affront by the Chinese government, which has traded tit-for-tat actions with the United States in recent months despite a broader trade truce.President Trump and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, are expected to meet in China next month and possibly the month after in Miami.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
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