{"id":17320,"date":"2026-01-04T19:20:25","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T19:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/president-trump-orders-divestment-in-2-9-million-chips-deal-to-protect-us-security-interests\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T19:20:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T19:20:25","slug":"president-trump-orders-divestment-in-2-9-million-chips-deal-to-protect-us-security-interests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/president-trump-orders-divestment-in-2-9-million-chips-deal-to-protect-us-security-interests\/","title":{"rendered":"President Trump orders divestment in $2.9 million chips deal to protect US security interests"},"content":{"rendered":"<div xmlns:xlink=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/xlink\">\n<div>\n<p>                                <bsp-timestamp data-timestamp=\"1767397021000\" data-recent-thresholdinhours=\"1\">                    <template data-date-tpl>Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year]<\/template>                    <span data-date><\/span>                <\/bsp-timestamp>            <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>                                    <bsp-page-actions>                            <\/bsp-page-actions>                                                            <\/div>\n<div>\n<p>WASHINGTON (AP) &mdash; President Donald Trump on Friday ordered the unraveling of a $2.9 million computer chips deal that he concluded threatened U.S. security interests if the current owner, HieFo Corp., remained in control of the technology.<\/p>\n<p>The executive order cast a spotlight on a business deal that drew scant attention when it was <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/news\/emcore-announces-sale-chips-business-200100497.html?guccounter=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced in May 2024<\/a><\/span>  during President Joe Biden&rsquo;s administration. The deal involved aerospace and defense specialist Emcore Corp. selling its computer chips and wafer fabrication operations to HieFo for $2.92 million &mdash; a price that included the assumption of about $1 million in liabilities.<\/p>\n<p>But Trump is <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2026\/01\/regarding-the-acquisition-of-certain-assets-of-emcore-corporation-by-hiefo-corporation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">now demanding<\/a><\/span>  that HieFo divest that technology within 180 days, citing &ldquo;credible evidence&rdquo; that the current owner is a citizen of the People&rsquo;s Republic of China. <\/p>\n<p>HieFo was founded by Dr. Genzao Zhang and Harry Moore. According to a <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiefo.com\/news\/show-38.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">press release<\/a><\/span>  that came out after the deal closed, plans for the technology acquired from Emcore were to be overseen by largely the same team of employees in Alhambra, California.<\/p>\n<p>Zhang, who was a vice president of engineering at Emcore before becoming HieFo&rsquo;s CEO, pledged to &ldquo;continue the pursuit of the most innovative and disruptive solutions&rdquo; with technology designed for purposes that would include artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>HieFo didn&rsquo;t immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump&rsquo;s order.<\/p>\n<p>Emcore was a publicly traded company at the time of the HieFo deal, but was taken private last year by the investment firm Charlesbank Capital Partner. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/president-trump-hiefo-emcore-divestment-fd324a0b76b1680dc5750e222ed74313\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year] WASHINGTON (AP) &mdash; President Donald Trump on Friday ordered the unraveling of a $2.9 million computer chips deal that he concluded threatened U.S. security interests if the current owner, HieFo Corp., remained in control of the technology. The executive order cast a spotlight on a business deal that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}