THE U.S. Commerce Department said Friday it was adding several Chinese companies and a government-owned institute involved in supercomputing to its national security “entity list” that bars them from buying U.S. parts and components without government approval.

The export restriction announcement adding the firms to what is effectively a trade blacklist is the latest effort by the Trump administration to restrict the ability of Chinese firms to gain access to U.S. technology amid an ongoing trade war.

The department said it was adding Sugon, the Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology, Higon, Chengdu Haiguang Integrated Circuit and Chengdu Haiguang Microelectronics Technology — along with numerous aliases of the five entities — to the list over concerns about military applications of the supercomputers they are developing.

China Radio International said in an editorial Saturday that the move was one of a series of recent actions by the United States that violated the consensus reached by U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Argentina last December.

“No matter whether it is aimed at suppressing Chinese technology or its long-term economic development, or put pressure on China in the trade negotiations, the United States will not achieve its aims,” it said.

In May, the Trump administration added China’s Huawei to the entity list and 68 affiliates in more than two dozen countries. Trump has said that the United States could resolve complaints about Huawei as part of a trade deal.

The United States, China, the European Union and Japan have all announced plans to build exaflop-capable supercomputers.

(SD-Agencies)