On February 13, according to Bloomberg, a number of industry executives said that due to increased scrutiny by the US Customs and Border Protection, Bitmain Technology Co., Ltd. has recently experienced delays in shipping machines to US customers. The delays coincided with the US Department of Commerce blacklisting Xiamen Sophgo Technologies Ltd., an AI subsidiary owned by Bitmain, in January this year, when the US accused the company of "acting at the request of Beijing to promote the goal of domestic advanced chip production in China". The situation has brought into conflict two goals of US President Trump: one is to gain the upper hand over China on trade, and the other is to train local cryptocurrency miners to ensure that bitcoin is "made in the United States". Bitmain, which accounts for 90 per cent of the market for computers dedicated to bitcoin mining, was already hit by Mr. Trump's tariffs in 2018. On February 1, Mr. Trump announced an additional 10 per cent tariff on Chinese imports. "About three months ago, US customs started randomly inspecting almost all airlifted bitcoin mining machines," said Nuo Xu, president of the China Digital Mining Association, which operates a US-based mining farm. Customs officials are inspecting the machines more closely, "while requiring brokers to show certificates of origin", Mr. Xu added. Previously, on December 9 last year, Bitmain announced the launch of the US factory, but did not disclose the specific location. Luxor's Vera said: "I expect any company that buys Bitmain machines is now at risk, including publicly traded companies."