The head of the House Select Committee on China urged the Trump administration Aug. 25 to adopt a new framework for restricting computing chip exports to China, saying placing certain technical limits on such sales would be a more effective way to keep Beijing’s AI capabilities in check.
The State Department is finalizing changes from a January rule that will add and remove items on the U.S. Munitions List and clarify the control scope of others. It said some new items should be subject to export controls under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, while others “no longer warrant inclusion” or will soon be moved to the Commerce Department’s Commerce Control List. The agency will also create a new license exemption for underwater drones and tweak other portions of the January rule, but it declined to make multiple changes requested by exporters.
President Donald Trump threatened to impose export controls on technology and semiconductors if countries have digital policies he dislikes.
Ian Richardson, who was named the first chief counsel for corporate enforcement at DOJ’s National Security Division in 2023 (see 2309120017), left the government this month to join Paul Weiss as a lawyer working on national security issues, he announced on LinkedIn. Richardson was most recently chief counsel of DOJ’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.
Rachel Alpert has left her role as chief counsel for the Office of Foreign Assets Control, she announced on LinkedIn. She was named to the position in October 2023 (see 2310250061).
The U.N. Security Council revised five entries under its ISIL (Da’esh) and al-Qaida sanctions list. The changes include updated identifying information, location information and other status updated for Ibrahim Ali Abu Bakr Tantoush; Al-Azhar Ben Khalifa Ben Ahmed Rouine; Sulaiman Jassem Sulaiman Ali Abo Ghaith; Shafi Sultan Mohammed al-Ajmi; and Gulmurod Khalimov
The Office of Foreign Assets Control is officially removing its Syrian Sanctions Regulations from the Code of Federal Regulations after President Donald Trump earlier this year ended the national emergency that authorized those sanctions (see 2506300055 and 2507010012). The change is effective Aug. 26.
Delisting decisions at the Office of Foreign Assets Control are increasingly being driven by outside voices, leading to removals that lack transparency and interagency discussion, a former OFAC official said.
The EU last week issued new guidance on a requirement created in 2024 that calls on EU parent companies to make “best efforts” to ensure that their third-country subsidiaries aren’t enabling sanctions evasion (see 2411220014 and 2406240024). Although this “legal obligation applies only in the context of sanctions on Russia and Belarus,” the European Commission said it’s encouraging all EU parent companies “to seek to ensure that all entities they own or control do not undermine EU sanctions anywhere in the world.”
The State Department rescinded its statutory debarment of Dominick DeQuarto after receiving a reinstatement request, the agency said in a notice released Aug. 22. The agency debarred DeQuarto in 2020 for violating the Arms Export Control Act but determined the debarment should no longer apply after conducting a “thorough review of the circumstances surrounding" his conviction. The State Department determined that DeQuarto has taken “appropriate steps to address the causes of the violations sufficient to warrant rescission of his statutory debarment.”