The Trump administration appears to be avoiding new China-related controls on sensitive semiconductor manufacturing equipment because it fears those restrictions could impede a trade deal, a technology policy researcher said this week. Other researchers said the administration isn’t using its chip bargaining power correctly, adding that the U.S. should be getting more for the deals it has made so far with Gulf nations and potentially others in the future.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., asked the Trump administration July 30 to provide more information about its decision to allow Nvidia to sell H20 AI chips to China, including what “guardrails” it has put in place to ensure that the exports don’t help modernize the Chinese military.

The Bureau of Industry and Security fined an industrial equipment supplier more than $1.57 million after the agency said it illegally exported refiner plates to Russia. The company, Pennsylvania-based Andritz Inc., committed 36 violations of the Export Administration Regulations by shipping more than $3.1 million worth of the plates without a license between May 2023 and February 2024, BIS said.

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California-based electronic design automation firm Cadence will pay more than $140 million in combined civil fines, criminal penalties and forfeitures after the U.S. said it violated export controls against China. The company pleaded guilty to illegally exporting EDA hardware, software and semiconductor design intellectual property technology to Chinese entities, including a university and company on the Entity List.

In separate letters to the Trump administration, more than 20 former national security officials along with five Senate Democrats urged the Commerce Department to reverse its decision to approve exports of Nvidia’s advanced AI chips to China.

The U.S. and the EU reached a trade deal this week that will include a 15% U.S. tariff on most EU exports and will eliminate duties on both sides for other items, including aircraft parts and certain semiconductor equipment, agricultural products and more. The EU also will buy advanced American AI chips along with more American energy as part of the bloc’s effort to phase out purchases from Russia, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.

The U.S., Australia and the U.K. need to make more items eligible for defense trade exemptions under the AUKUS partnership, an Australian researcher said last week.

The Trump administration should carefully study any new export controls on the subsystems of semiconductor manufacturing equipment so it doesn’t unintentionally undercut U.S. chip tooling firms, wrote Ruby Scanlon, a research assistant with the Center for a New American Security.

The Trump administration is launching a new program to increase U.S. exports of AI technologies and services as part of an effort to spread the adoption of American AI systems around the world.