BlockBeats news: On July 25, according to the WSJ, Apple and Micron engaged in intense lobbying over whether Chinese memory chips should be allowed into Apple’s supply chain. The Trump administration faces a policy choice between lowering consumer electronics prices and promoting domestic U.S. semiconductor manufacturing.

Reports say that Apple CEO Tim Cook and other executives recently submitted a proposal to U.S. President Trump and U.S. officials, including Howard Lutnick, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and Scott Bessent, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. The proposal seeks to use products from Chinese memory chip manufacturers ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and Yangtze Memory Technologies Corporation (YMTC) in Apple products sold in markets outside the United States.

Apple believes bringing in Chinese suppliers would help ease the global memory chip shortage and lower consumer costs. But Micron opposes the plan, saying that allowing Chinese companies to supply chips to U.S. tech firms could weaken the U.S. domestic memory chip industry.

Micron is currently the largest-scale memory chip manufacturer in the United States. Company executives have warned that Chinese firms could create an impact on the U.S. semiconductor industry similar to that seen in the steel and manufacturing sectors, and they argue that supply issues should be addressed by accelerating the construction of domestic factories in the U.S.

Meanwhile, surging demand from AI data centers has driven memory chip prices to skyrocket. Reportedly, over the past year, memory chip prices have risen several times, undermining Apple’s bargaining power with suppliers. Apple also accuses Micron of having excessively high profit margins and says its expansion pace is insufficient.

Micron says the company plans to invest $250 billion in the United States to expand production capacity for memory chips, and emphasizes the importance of advanced memory technology to U.S. strategic competition.

Analysts believe the dispute highlights a conflict between two core goals of the Trump administration: on the one hand, it wants to lower costs for American consumers; on the other hand, it wants to reduce reliance on China’s semiconductor supply chain and improve domestic manufacturing capacity.