The U.S. needs stronger restrictions on the types of advanced technology research that can be shared with academic institutions and other entities from China, lawmakers and witnesses said during a congressional hearing last week, including by possibly extending export controls to cover fundamental research. Others said the U.S. should be careful about cutting off too much collaboration with China, which would disregard the strides universities have recently made to better protect sensitive research.
President Donald Trump last week threatened to increase sanctions against Russia if it doesn't agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine and a peace deal. His comments came one day after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also threatened more sanctions against Moscow, including its energy sector.
The U.K. this week lifted sanctions on a range of entities that had ties to the overthrown Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria while keeping sanctions on people still connected to the regime or involved in illegal Syrian drug trade.
Although the Bureau of Industry and Security recently resumed processing certain license applications that it had paused in early February as part of a broader export control policy review, the agency is still holding applications for a range of items destined to countries outside a group of about 40 U.S. allies and other trading partners, two people with knowledge of the holds said.
China and Canada announced new retaliatory trade restrictions against the U.S. -- and Mexico announced plans to soon release its own set of countermeasures -- after President Donald Trump's administration on March 4 increased tariffs on goods from all three countries. Industry associations said the counter-duties could damage a range of American export industries, including shippers of agricultural products, spirits and other commercial goods.
Everspin Technologies, a semiconductor firm based in Arizona, disclosed to the Bureau of Industry and Security that it may have violated U.S. export controls.
The Trump administration appears likely to ramp up export controls against China with an aim of decoupling, two former senior U.S. economic officials said.
The Bureau of Industry and Security for the past month has been led by a key Project 2025 contributor entrusted by the Trump administration with overseeing an export control policy review, an effort that resulted in a licensing pause and coincided with multiple senior career employees leaving the agency. BIS resumed processing and approving certain license applications around the same time the Trump official was removed from his position late last month, Export Compliance Daily has found.
Microsoft this week urged the Trump administration to rethink portions of a Biden-era rule that placed global export controls on certain shipments of advanced artificial intelligence chips, saying the rule will have unintended negative consequences on the American technology industry.
President Donald Trump on Feb. 26 said he is reversing certain sanctions relief provided to Venezuela by the Biden administration as part of an “oil transaction agreement” signed in November 2022. That date was when the Office of Foreign Assets Control granted U.S. oil company Chevron a general license to resume certain oil activities in Venezuela, which was intended to support the newly restarted negotiations between Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro’s regime and the country’s opposition party (see 2211280042).