Micron is actively lobbying the Trump administration to block Apple from purchasing memory chips from Chinese suppliers ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies. CEO Tim Cook and senior executives have pitched Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent directly, arguing that using Chinese-made chips for devices sold in the Chinese market would free up Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron capacity for American consumers. Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra has made the counter-argument to the same officials: that allowing any U.S. Tech company to buy from heavily state-subsidized Chinese chipmakers, regardless of where the end product is sold, could hollow out American memory production the same way cheap Chinese steel gutted domestic manufacturing.
Standard DRAM contract prices jumped an estimated 55% to 60% in early 2026 as AI server demand sucked capacity away from consumer devices. Apple responded by raising prices across almost its entire product lineup in June 2026. Cook signaled the company’s intentions in a Wall Street Journal interview around the same time, saying “everything needs to be on the table” regarding supply options.
CXMT is now the world’s fourth-largest DRAM producer, holding roughly 11% of global DRAM wafer capacity, a share expected to reach 15% by 2028. YMTC is on the Commerce Department’s Entity List. Both have been designated as Chinese military companies by the Pentagon. Apple is essentially asking for a national security exemption to buy from suppliers the U.S. Government has formally flagged as threats.
The administration now has to choose between two things it has said it cares about: lowering consumer prices and building domestic semiconductor capacity. Approving Apple’s request gets cheaper memory into the supply chain and potentially eases price pressure on iPhones, Macs, and iPads sold globally. Denying it protects Micron and validates the chip restrictions already on the books, but does nothing to fix the shortage in the short term.
Micron is not just playing defense and the company has told officials it can accelerate construction of domestic plants and increase U.S. Investment to help close the gap. Whether that promise has a realistic timeline is a different question.
A Micron executive told the Wall Street Journal that “a couple of [its] customers” had been “very aggressive with pricing” during the 2023 market downturn, arguing that those rock-bottom prices discouraged chipmakers from investing in new capacity and helped create the conditions for today’s shortage. The implication that Apple’s own purchasing behavior contributed to the crisis it is now trying to escape by turning to Chinese suppliers carries weight in Washington.
Apple tried this in 2022 under the Biden administration, seeking permission to work with YMTC for iPhones sold in China. That effort failed. The current push requests approval to use Chinese chips in products for the Chinese market, putting more production volume at stake. That is why Micron views it as critical rather than a minor policy footnote.
The Trump administration’s instinct to back American companies and protect domestic manufacturing cuts against Apple here, even if its instinct to lower consumer prices cuts in Apple’s favor. Apple has already begun testing CXMT chips, signalling serious intent. But Micron has structured its argument to hit the manufacturing angle hard, and that is probably the smarter play in the current political environment. Apple has Tim Cook’s relationship with Trump, which is not nothing, but “let us buy chips from Pentagon-designated Chinese military companies for our international products” is a genuinely difficult case to make.
