More than 100 government officials from over 25 countries met in Mexico City last week as part of the fourth meeting of the Semiconductor Informal Exchange Network (SIEN), discussing efforts to expand the semiconductor supply chain, the State Department said Feb. 21. Industry officials and academic leaders also used the meetings to speak about “challenges and opportunities” in the semiconductor sector, the agency said. The State Department said the countries involved in SIEN will hold a tabletop exercise later this year to “increase policymakers’ ability to address disruptions in the global semiconductor ecosystem.”
Matthew Axelrod, the Bureau of Industry and Security's top export enforcement official, traveled to Germany last week to talk with European industry executives and enforcement officials about export controls and to speak at the 2024 Munich Security Conference. BIS said Axelrod “participated in several discussions regarding national security challenges facing the United States and its partners.” Matthew Olsen, head of DOJ’s National Security Division, and Paul Rosen, the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for investment security, also attended.
The EU and the U.S. should try to reach a more “concrete” set of outcomes before the next Trade and Technology Council meeting in April and may discuss making the body permanent, said Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU’s top trade official. He said the two sides are “fleshing out new ideas” on supply chain, export controls and investment screening issues, and they want to make progress before the current European Commission term ends in October and before the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
The U.S. should pursue forming a new multilateral regime to coordinate export controls and related policies for critical and emerging technologies (CET) because existing multilateral export control entities are ill-suited for that role, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a new report.
Businesses are relieved by the quasi-truce between China and the U.S., consultants and lawyers said on a trade panel last week, but those in the tech sectors expect more restrictions are coming in the near future.
Industry lawyers and advisers see the Bureau of Industry and Security's revamped voluntary disclosure policies as a positive set of moves that could reduce compliance burdens on exporters and encourage more companies to come forward with tips about their competitors. But at least one former government official said corporations should remain skeptical about the changes until BIS offers more clarity about how it will implement them in practice.
A senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the dissection of Russian military equipment used in the Ukraine war frequently uncovers Western-made microchips.
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Policy experts and former government officials speaking on a panel this week mostly agreed that the U.S. should impose sectoral-based outbound investment restrictions on China rather than individual investment sanctions on specific entities, saying a sector approach would be much simpler and more effective. And although some companies say it will be too challenging to comply with a broad investment ban on sensitive Chinese technology sectors, one expert said it will be easier than the financial industry is letting on.
An investigation by the House Select Committee on China found that five U.S. venture capital firms have invested more than $3 billion in Chinese technology companies, many of which aid China’s military, surveillance apparatus and human rights violations, the committee said on Feb. 8.