Cotton Seeks U.S. Ban on CXMT Products and Cutoff From U.S. Technology
Key Facts
U.S. Senator Tom Cotton asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to ban ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) products from the U.S. market and deny the company access to U.S. technology, according to a statement from Cotton dated November 12. The request puts export restrictions and the company’s sales before the Commerce Department, but does not mean a ban has taken effect. Cotton urged the department to add the company to its Entity List, which would restrict its access to U.S. technology and technical support. He also asked the department to consider banning sales of CXMT products in the United States, a separate step from restricting the company’s access to technology. Cotton said the company “poses a growing threat to our economic prosperity and military superiority,” and called for preventing it from strengthening its position in the global market.
Adding CXMT to the proposed list would impose broad restrictions on its access to U.S. technology and technical support, including semiconductor manufacturing equipment and tools, according to Cotton’s letter. The ban he asked the department to consider concerns sales of the company’s products in the U.S. market and is not limited to manufacturing tools or technical support. The move is based on national security and competition concerns outlined by the senator in his letter. The statement did not specify when the Commerce Department would decide on the request. Nor did it announce a new department decision imposing the restrictions Cotton called for.
Cotton also cited existing restrictions and measures, saying the Department of War had placed CXMT on its Chinese military companies list under Section 1260H. He said the Bureau of Industry and Security’s end-use controls restrict exports of a range of advanced technologies to some of the company’s factories. Those existing restrictions differ from his new request to expand restrictions through the Entity List and consider a ban on product sales. He also noted that Congress restricted additional government purchases of CXMT products under the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. In his letter, he presented these steps as background to the action he is now asking the Commerce Department to take.
On the company’s AI memory capabilities, Cotton said CXMT would begin producing HBM3E high-bandwidth memory. He said its chip manufacturing yield is about 20% and its performance is weaker than competitors’ products, according to his letter. The comments come as memory companies compete to meet demand linked to AI servers. Counterpoint estimated that SK hynix accounted for 50% of global HBM market revenue in the second quarter of 2026, according to Reuters. Samsung had a 33% share and Micron 18% in the same period, underscoring the position of the three companies in the market CXMT is seeking to enter.
In the conventional memory market, CXMT accounted for 10% of global DRAM revenue in the second quarter of 2026, making it the fourth-largest supplier, according to Counterpoint as cited by Reuters. Based on shipments during 2025, the Associated Press estimated the company’s share of the global market at about 8%. In the same year, Samsung had a 36% share, SK hynix about 29% and Micron about 24%. These figures provide context for the scale of competition related to Cotton’s call to restrict the Chinese company’s access to U.S. technology. But they refer to earlier periods and do not measure the impact of the request issued on November 12.
SK hynix shares closed at $137.71 in the November 12, 2026 session, according to EL7 data. The closing price places the stock in the context of news that may be relevant to competition in the memory market, but available data do not attribute the share move in that session to Cotton’s request. The available figures also do not include a documented session high or low. Cotton’s request therefore remains a proposed measure directed to the Commerce Department, while the closing price remains a figure recorded in the same session. Cotton’s statement did not specify a dated next step or a timetable for a department decision.