Companies should expect the Trump administration to continue to rely heavily on sanctions and sanctions enforcement as a foreign policy tool in 2026, including through new designations to pressure countries in the Western Hemisphere and penalties on gatekeepers that enable evasion, law firms said this month. They also said it's still unclear how the U.S. will approach its sanctions regime against Venezuela, although the administration would likely be able to easily roll back many of those restrictions.
The Pentagon is looking to tighten controls around fundamental research to better shield that research from “malign" foreign influence and intellectual property theft, including by barring grants if the research involves companies on the agency's 1260H List.
The Bureau of Industry and Security reached a $1.5 million settlement this week with an international procurement company after its Shanghai affiliate admitted to illegally transferring low-level semiconductor equipment to a Chinese company on the Entity List.
The U.S.-China trade relationship will experience a relatively stable year in 2026 as both sides determine their next steps amid an export control stalemate, Eurasia Group analysts predicted this week.
The U.S. government hasn't yet approved license applications for Nvidia to sell its H200 AI chips to China, Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said this week.
The U.S. will continue to impose and enforce its sanctions against Venezuela until the country takes steps to “further the national interest of the United States” and create a better future for the Venezuelan people, Secretary of State Marci Rubio said.
President Donald Trump has ordered a U.S.-based company owned by a Chinese national to unwind its April 2024 purchase of semiconductor assets from an American technology firm, saying the deal threatens U.S. national security.
A U.S. federal court declined a request from a Cayman Islands energy firm to preemptively block it from being sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, saying the company failed to point to a statute that would give the court this power.
The Trump administration plans to convene early next year to try to better organize its approach to AI diffusion and export controls over AI semiconductors, said Paul Triolo, the technology policy lead at advisory firm Albright Stonebridge Group.
The State Department is finalizing and making several changes to a 2024 AUKUS rule that created an exemption for defense trade among the U.S., Australia and the U.K., including one change that will create a new and separate exemption for exports to support the armed forces of the three nations. The agency also used the final rule to respond to a host of public comments from the 2024 change, declining several recommendations to limit the scope of the Excluded Technology List and providing more guidance about how the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls treats expedited licensing, who qualifies as an authorized user, and more.