WASHINGTON D.C.: Expanding the scope of a Trump-era order, President Joe Biden signed an executive order late last week banning U.S. entities from investing in Chinese companies with alleged ties to the defense or surveillance technology sectors, part of his broader series of steps to counter China.

The order prevents U.S. investment entities from supporting the Chinese military-industrial complex, as well as military, intelligence, and security research and development programs, according to the order.

The Treasury Department will enforce and update on a “rolling basis” the new list of some 59 Chinese companies, which bars buying or selling publicly traded securities in target companies, and replaces an earlier list from the Department of Defense, senior administration officials told reporters.

Major Chinese firms included in the previous Defense Department list were included on the new list, including Aviation Industry Corp of China, China Mobile Communications Group, China National Offshore Oil Corp, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co Ltd, Huawei Technologies Ltd, and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.

However, some previously identified companies, such as Commercial Aircraft Corp of China, which is spearheading Chinese efforts to compete with Boeing Co and Airbus, as well as two companies that had challenged the ban in court, Gowin Semiconductor Corp and Luokung Technology Corp, were not included.

“We fully expect that in the months ahead … we’ll be adding additional companies to the new executive order’s restrictions,” one of the senior officials said, according to Reuters.

Senior officials said the Treasury Department would explain in detail the scope of surveillance technology, including whether companies are facilitating “repression or serious human rights abuses.”

The order said the ban would take effect on August 2 for those companies currently listed. U.S. investors would still have 365 days to divest.

Stewart Baker, a former Department of Homeland Security official, said the Treasury’s “settled regulatory and legal regime” made it a better place than the Defense Department to enforce the ban.

“This follows in a growing tradition of the Biden administration coming along and saying: ‘Trump was right in principle and wrong in execution, and we’ll fix that,'” Baker said, as quoted by Reuters.