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.
Jeffrey Kessler, President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Bureau of Industry and Security (see 2502040059), said at his Senate nomination hearing Feb. 27 that he has reservations about the agency’s latest export controls on advanced artificial intelligence chips and wants to scrutinize them. He also testified that he plans to examine whether BIS needs more resources and a reorganization.
The U.K. has seen a steady uptick in the number of new criminal investigations on sanctions and export control violations over the last three years, with most having a Russia connection, the country’s trade enforcement agency said. The agency during that time has worked to strengthen its “capabilities for detecting and responding to sanctions breaches,” including by hiring 40 more criminal investigators and devoting more funding toward gathering “intelligence” on industry’s sanctions compliance efforts.
A new task force that the House Foreign Affairs Committee created to improve how the government handles foreign military sales and export controls has begun its work, committee Chairman Brian Mast, R-Fla., said Feb. 25.
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The leaders of the House Select Committee on China said Feb. 25 that Congress should pass legislation restricting U.S. outbound investment in China despite a recent move by the Trump administration to address the issue.
Matt Borman, a longtime senior career official overseeing export control regulations at the Bureau of Industry and Security, is expected to leave BIS soon, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., urged the Commerce Department this week to decline to give the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to confidential business data, including information disclosed in export license applications filed with the Bureau of Industry and Security.
A new White House memo on President Donald Trump’s “America-first investment policy” previews efforts to expand both inbound and outbound foreign investment restrictions, tamp down on the use of mitigation agreements, fast-track investment deals from certain allies and more.