President Donald Trump told reporters Nov. 17 that the U.S. will approve sales of F-35 jets to Saudi Arabia. "We will be doing that. We will be selling them F-35s," he said. Saudi Arabia would be the second country in the Middle East, after Israel, to be allowed to buy F-35s, which are typically shared only with countries that have close military ties to the U.S.
The State Department last week approved possible military sales -- to Germany, Denmark, Taiwan and Iraq -- the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said.
The State Department last week approved a possible $353 million military sale to Singapore, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said. The sale includes "Ebbing Air National Guard Base Facilities Construction Services" and related equipment. There are no principal contractors associated with it.
The U.S. and South Korea have agreed to a "Technology Prosperity Deal" one day after the U.S. and Japan signed a similar agreement (see 2510280031). The deal commits both nations to strengthen the "enforcement of technology protection measures," boost U.S. and Korean AI exports "across the full stack of AI hardware," increase collaboration on research security, and more.
Public comments on the Commerce Department's upcoming American AI Exports Program are due by Nov. 28, according to a Federal Register notice released this week. Commerce announced on Oct. 21 that it would be asking industry for feedback on how it should shape the program and ensure that it complies with export controls and other national security regulations (see 2510220008).
Geopolitics, including sanctions and export controls, is increasingly becoming an agenda item for the corporate boardroom, according to professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. They said more companies need to build “a geopolitical calculus” into their business strategy, secure and diversify their supply chains to hedge against new trade restrictions, and guard against “adversarial capital,” such as investors “aligned with adversarial states.” Governments are “increasingly focused on protecting startups from such threats -- which underscores the importance of working with trusted partners and funds that understand the security implications of frontier technologies.”
The success of the Trump administration's AI export plan depends on how fast the U.S. can export its AI technology around the world and whether the project allows the U.S. to strengthen relationships with allies, said Pablo Chavez, an adjunct senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security's Technology and National Security Program.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told a TV reporter that he and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were leaving for Malaysia on Oct. 22, to hold trade talks with their Chinese counterparts.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he's speaking with his counterparts in the EU, Australia, Canada, India and other parts of Asia about how they can respond to the new Chinese restrictions on rare earths. “We're going to have a fulsome, group response to this,” he said (see 2510150034).
President Donald Trump posted on social media that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a long, "very productive" phone call on Oct. 16. In addition to talking about the ceasefire in Gaza and the first lady's efforts to get Ukrainian children held in Russia or Russia-occupied Ukraine back to their parents in free Ukraine, "we also spent a great deal of time talking about Trade between Russia and the United States when the War with Ukraine is over," he wrote.