Senior Bureau of Industry and Security officials haven’t yet been given orders by the Trump administration on several key export control policy issues, including possible plans to soon relax export controls against Russia, multiple Commerce Department officials said last week.
It’s still unclear how the Trump administration will approach the Bureau of Industry and Security's artificial intelligence diffusion rule or any of the agency’s recently published proposed or interim final rules that haven’t yet taken effect, a Commerce Department official said.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is reviewing public comments on two rules it proposed last year to expand U.S. persons controls, a Commerce Department official said March 18.
The congressionally mandated National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology is expected to include recommendations on export control policy in its upcoming report to Congress, a Commerce Department official said March 18.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies this month published English translations of recently updated or proposed semiconductor-related export controls issued by the Netherlands and Japan. The new Dutch regulations (see 2501150057) “specify which types of equipment now require a license to be legally exported from the Netherlands, based on specific technology usage or performance thresholds,” CSIS said, while the Japanese document includes proposed rules for “tighter restrictions on chip testing and measurement equipment, computer-aided design software, materials, and semiconductors.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security released a "preliminary" agenda for its update conference scheduled for next week. The agenda includes two plenary sessions, a panel on export enforcement, and breakout sessions covering various topics, including semiconductor export controls, "emerging technology and foreign technology analysis," end-use/end-user controls, AUKUS, export enforcement best practices, the Office of Information and Communications Technology and Services, a regulatory review, space controls, and the Defense Production Act. The agenda also includes a list of speakers, which includes senior officials from BIS, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the State Department and the Pentagon as well as government officials from Japan, South Korea and the EU. BIS said the agenda is subject to change.
British and Japanese ministers last week discussed export controls on critical technologies, supply chain issues, the World Trade Organization and other trade topics during the second U.K.-Japan Strategic Economic Policy and Trade Dialogue.
Australia’s amended Defence Trade Controls Act, which introduces criminal penalties for violations of export controls over military and dual-use technologies, took effect March 1, Export Controls Australia Group said in an alert to members this month. The group issued a reminder that Australian exporters and other organizations are now subject to “stricter permit requirements”; expanded recordkeeping rules; increased compliance reporting requirements, including for voluntary disclosures; and “enhanced self-audit expectations to ensure ongoing regulatory adherence.”
Singapore authorities charged three men with fraud last week after linking them to alleged illegal exports of advanced chips made by American semiconductor firm Nvidia, Singapore-based broadcaster Channel News Asia reported Feb. 28. The three men allegedly “made false representations” last year that the Nvidia chips wouldn’t be transferred to someone other than the "authorised ultimate consignee of end users," the report said, which may have violated U.S. export controls. The charges came after Singapore trade official Tan See Leng told the country’s parliament on Feb. 18 that Singapore doesn’t “condone businesses deliberately using their association with the country to circumvent or violate export controls of other nations,” the report said.
Countries, especially within the EU, should try to minimize export control compliance and enforcement challenges posed by cloud computing services, researchers said in a report this month.