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An interagency committee approved DeepSeek, ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), and more than 100 other companies for Commerce Department Entity List designation last year. None of those listings have been published. The list has not been updated since October 2025, the longest enforcement gap in over a decade, according to a Reuters exclusive citing two people familiar with the matter.

Key Facts

• Entity List last updated: October 2025
• Gap: 8+ months, longest in the list’s history
• Companies approved but not published: 100+
• Named companies: DeepSeek (AI startup), CXMT (China’s top memory chipmaker)
• Approved listings: reported for the first time by Reuters

The Entity List is the US’s primary export control mechanism. Companies on it cannot receive US goods, software, or technology without a license — one that is almost certain to be denied in national security cases.

Why the Freeze

The Trump administration is holding the listings back to avoid escalating tensions with Beijing, per Reuters sources. The diplomatic calculation is being made against a growing stack of evidence that the companies waiting to be listed pose real threats.

On DeepSeek specifically:

• A State Department official confirmed last year that DeepSeek has supported Chinese military and intelligence operations
• The same official said DeepSeek used Southeast Asian shell companies to attempt illegal access to advanced US chips
• Anthropic identified a campaign by DeepSeek and two other Chinese AI labs to extract capabilities from its Claude AI platform
• OpenAI warned Congress that DeepSeek was targeting its models as well

On CXMT: China’s top memory chipmaker was already designated a Chinese military company by the Defense Department under the Biden administration. The Commerce Department has been considering Entity List designation for over a year.

The geopolitical logic behind the freeze extends further. Companies that were approved for listing but not yet published supplied Russian drones recovered in Poland, according to a Reuters source. The delay is not a finding that the threat was overstated — it is a trade-off between enforcement and diplomatic positioning.

What Entity List Designation Actually Does

Companies on the Entity List cannot receive exports of US goods, technology, or software without a license from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security. Licenses in national security cases are routinely denied. The practical effect is a near-total cutoff from US supply chains, including the advanced chips DeepSeek has been flagged for pursuing through illicit channels.

Designation would formalize what multiple government agencies have already concluded: DeepSeek is a security threat. The interagency committee reached that conclusion last year. The listings were prepared and approved. They have not been published.

The Broader Pattern

This is not the first time the Trump administration has moved slowly on export controls that would irritate Beijing. The Xi-Trump summit earlier this year briefly cleared Nvidia H200 sales to 10 Chinese firms before Beijing blocked delivery. The pattern is negotiation theater — controls are available as leverage, so using them costs something diplomatically.

Whether the freeze survives the next round of US-China trade talks is unclear. The Entity List backlog is now large enough that any single update would be the most significant in the list’s history. Eight months of approved-but-unpublished designations, covering China’s leading AI startup and its top memory chipmaker, is not a minor gap. It is a policy choice.