The Senate voted 54-45 late March 13 to confirm Washington trade lawyer Jeffrey Kessler to be undersecretary of commerce for industry and security. The vote came a week after the Senate Banking Committee approved Kessler’s nomination along party lines (see 2503060043). Kessler has said he would conduct a host of reviews at the Bureau of Industry and Security, including whether the agency needs more statutory authorities to do its job (see 2503060043).

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.

Sen. John Cornyn introduced a bill March 13 to restrict U.S. outbound investment in China, the latest of several attempts to pass legislation on a topic many lawmakers consider critical to national security.

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.

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The Treasury Department included its Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI) in the Trump administration’s hiring freeze but is now considering giving it relief from the pause due to its national security role, the department told lawmakers.

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.

House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar, R-Mich., asked the Bureau of Industry and Security to brief his panel on how it's restricting China’s access to U.S. university supercomputers.

The Bureau of Industry needs better resources and technology, and the semiconductor industry needs better tracking tools, to prevent China from illegally receiving and accessing advanced chip technology, a researcher told a BIS advisory committee this week.