SB 1359, the STOP CCP Act of 2025, would prohibit U.S. persons from buying, selling, or otherwise facilitating publicly traded securities issued by Chinese entities that the Treasury Department determines operate in China’s defense and related materiel sector or surveillance technology sector, or are owned or controlled by such entities. The bill also covers derivative securities and other instruments designed to provide exposure to those securities, and it bars transactions that evade, avoid, or conspire to violate the prohibition.
In addition to the investment ban, the bill directs the Treasury Department to expand the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s Non-Specially Designated Nationals Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies List within 180 days of enactment. The expanded list would include entities supporting the Chinese military-industrial complex, their owners or controllers, successors created through spin-offs, mergers, acquisitions, or sales, and entities providing financial services to those companies. The bill also requires broader sanctions coordination so that, when sanctions are imposed on a Chinese entity under one applicable statute or executive order, they generally must be imposed under other applicable authorities as well unless waived.
The bill would add new federal restrictions on U.S. investment activity involving certain Chinese companies and would expand Treasury’s sanctions and designation authorities. It would affect U.S. investors, financial institutions, broker-dealers, asset managers, and other intermediaries that purchase, sell, execute, support, or service covered securities transactions. It would also likely increase compliance obligations tied to sanctions screening, ownership tracing, and exposure to Chinese military-linked or surveillance-related firms, while strengthening OFAC’s Chinese military-industrial complex list and related sanctions enforcement.
The available context shows the bill was introduced by Senator Scott of Florida with cosponsors Blackburn and Hyde-Smith and then referred to the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. No committee transcript or recorded vote is provided, so there is no direct evidence of debate or bipartisan support in the supplied materials. Based on the bill’s framing, it appears to reflect a strong hawkish, national-security-oriented posture toward China and Chinese military-linked firms.
The main policy contention is likely between national security advocates who favor restricting U.S. capital from supporting Chinese defense and surveillance sectors, and critics who may argue the bill is overly broad, difficult to administer, or harmful to U.S. investors and markets. Another likely point of debate is the scope of Treasury’s authority to determine covered entities, the inclusion of derivatives and indirect exposure, and the bill’s sanctions “closing loopholes” provision, which could be seen as reducing flexibility by requiring parallel sanctions across multiple authorities unless waived by the President.