Chinese drone maker DJI urged the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to compel the Pentagon to provide its counsel with classified information in the company's suit against its designation as a Chinese military company. DJI argued that the information is "undoubtedly" relevant since DOD used it as the basis for DJI's designation, and that disclosure is needed because the court can't evaluate the designation without access to the "very information on which that designation is based" (SZ DJI Technology Co. v. U.S. Department of Defense, D.D.C. # 24-02970).
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.
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.
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.
President Donald Trump’s recently issued “America-first investment policy” memo suggests that the administration may focus potential trade negotiations with China around purchases of U.S. exports and tariff issues rather than national security issues, said Martin Chorzempa, a senior fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Instead of prematurely lifting sanctions against Russia, the U.S. should look to close sanctions loopholes, double down on enforcement and continue coordinating the restrictions with allies, Charles Lichfield, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, said in an analysis published by the think tank this week.
A new vessel sharing agreement between Japanese carrier Ocean Network Express, South Korea-based Hyundai Merchant Marine and Taiwan-based Yang Ming Marine Transportation (see 2411070005) will take effect Feb. 9, the Federal Maritime Commission said Feb. 6 after completing its review. The commission said it carried out an “economic analysis of the competitive effects of the” arrangement, called the Premier Alliance Agreement, adding that all agreements “are subject to the strictest standards for ongoing monitoring by the Commission.”
U.S. export controls on computing chips and chipmaking equipment are more likely to slow China's advances in artificial intelligence than in military modernization, a researcher said during a Feb. 6 hearing of the congressionally mandated U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
The European Commission is pushing for new import fees and customs controls on certain low-value e-commerce imports that it said are unsafe, counterfeit or don’t meet other EU product standards. The controls could target products from online marketplaces such as AliExpess, Amazon, Shein and Temu, the commission said, adding that those companies could be liable for the sale of unsafe products on their platforms.
Sahar Hafeez, a former senior adviser in the Bureau of Industry and Security undersecretary’s office (see 2107270016 and 2107280051), has rejoined Pillsbury Winthrop as an international trade and national security lawyer, the firm announced this week. Hafeez was most recently a senior adviser to the assistant secretary for industry and analysis at the Commerce Department before leaving government last month.