Request for BIS Funding Boost Backs Up Enforcement Talk, Researcher Says
The Trump administration’s request for an increased budget allocation for the Bureau of Industry and Security (see 2505020030) signals that export enforcement will be one of the administration's top priorities, said Gregory Allen, director of the Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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Allen, speaking on CSIS' podcast "The AI Policy" last week, said the budget request is “really backing up” recent comments by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. He told lawmakers during his nomination hearing that he wants strong export enforcement to be a “hallmark” of his tenure (see 2502050048) and said at an industry conference in March to expect a “dramatic” increase in penalties (see 2503180041).
The administration’s latest budget request is a large shift from late March, when it reduced BIS' FY 2025 funding by 10.5%, or $20 million, to $171 million, as part of a broader cut to national security programs (see 2503260050). Allen said it now seems that those cuts were done on a “pretty broad basis” before the administration had time to finish assessing its priorities.
“Now that the Trump administration and the interagency process that the White House leads has sort of done a review of strategic priorities,” he said, “it's clear that effective export control enforcement is one of those priorities, as reflected in the fact that it shows up in the budget.”
Allen pointed out that the BIS budget has been flat or declining -- when adjusted for inflation -- over the last decade. “This is the first time that I think BIS is really being treated the right way.”
If the funding request is approved, it would be a “lot closer” to the kind of resources that BIS needs, he said, although it depends on how the bureau spends the money. He also said it’s fair to question whether the funding boost is “too little, too late.”
“A lot of smuggling has already taken place. A lot of stuff has been shipped to China,” Allen said. “I would have loved to have seen something like this happen in the first Trump administration or in the Biden administration.”