The Bureau of Industry and Security hasn't yet lifted all the licensing holds that began for export applications in early February, a Commerce Department official said this week, although the agency is hoping to make progress on the holds soon.
The Trump administration plans to substantially increase fines against companies that violate export controls, including against China, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said this week. He also said the U.S. is planning to incorporate export control commitments into free trade deal negotiations as a way to incentivize trading partners to better restrict their sensitive technologies.
Three U.K.-registered charity organizations violated the country’s financial sanctions regulations when they failed to respond to letters from the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, the agency said this month.
OpenAI, Google and other leading technology companies and organizations urged the U.S. this month to rework the Biden administration’s artificial intelligence diffusion rule, saying it places too many restrictions on American firms and its trading partners.
Former U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan defended the Biden administration's final weeks of moves that imposed sanctions against Russia and export controls on China, saying they set up the current administration for success.
It’s possible that the Trump administration offers Russia some “symbolic” sanctions relief as part of peace negotiations with Ukraine, but the broader lifting of sanctions on Russia’s oil sector is more unlikely, a former U.S. sanctions official said this week.
The EU and Canada announced retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. this week, targeting billions of dollars' worth of American exports in response to what they said were unjustified global 25% steel and aluminum duties imposed by the Trump administration. Other nations also criticized the U.S. tariffs as they mulled countermeasures of their own.
The Bureau of Industry and Security could face significant challenges imposing and enforcing export controls against China if the Trump administration continues to slash government workers and resources, particularly in the national security sphere, a technology policy researcher said in a new report. The report said the U.S. needs to continue investing in efforts to close export control loopholes that allow China to acquire advanced artificial intelligence chips, but it also said that even “extremely aggressive” controls are unlikely to give the U.S. a large lead in the AI race.
The U.S. added more people and entities to sanctions and export control lists in 2024 than the previous year, with a large portion targeting Russia and China, the Center for a New American Security said this week.
The U.S. should tighten export controls on advanced artificial intelligence chips and bolster security requirements for frontier AI labs, which will slow American adversaries from developing their own AI technologies and keep the U.S. in the lead, AI research and development firm Anthropic told the White House this month.