Longtime Bureau of Industry and Security official Sharron Cook is planning to retire soon from the agency, according to multiple people with knowledge of her plans. Cook, a senior BIS export policy analyst, has worked at BIS and the Commerce Department for close to four decades.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a new general license this week to authorize the sale to Venezuela of U.S.-origin diluents, a fuel needed to make exportable crude oil.
National security justified the Commerce Department’s decision to withhold much of its final proposal to place importer Yangtze Memory Technologies Company on the Entity List, the U.S. said again in a supplemental briefing filed Feb. 2 (Husch Blackwell v. Department of Commerce, D.D.C. # 1:24-02733).
House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar, R-Mich., urged the Commerce Department to ensure that any H200 AI chips that Nvidia is allowed to sell to China are not used to modernize China’s military.
A partial federal government shutdown beginning Jan. 31 is looking likely, as the killing of Alex Pretti by a member of Border Patrol has turned centrist Senate Democrats against a funding package that includes DHS.
Companies that are still waiting for export licensing decisions amid delays at the Bureau of Industry and Security should remain persistent and leverage whatever connections they have -- either through trade organizations or political avenues -- to try to get their application moving, industry officials said this week.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a bill Jan. 21 that would increase congressional oversight of sales of advanced AI chips to China and other “countries of concern.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security is easing certain license requirements to allow for easier exports of less sensitive drones to most Wassenaar Arrangement member states and exports of “more capable” drones to a group of close U.S. allies.
DOJ unveiled last week that it had seized two "mission crew trainers" in 2024 that allegedly were bound for the Chinese military from a South African flight academy on the Entity List. The agency made the announcement Jan. 15 while filling a forfeiture complaint for both trainers with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Although the Trump administration plans to allow Nvidia H200 chips to be exported to China, a White House official stressed last week that those exports will be closely scrutinized and that the U.S. will continue to restrict exports of the most leading-edge American chips and technology. Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, also said he doesn’t believe the Bureau of Industry and Security needs any additional authorities from Congress to boost its export control implementation or enforcement powers.