The U.S. needs to better enforce its existing export controls on advanced AI chips and chip equipment while bolstering its ability to screen Chinese investments that may be looking to evade those restrictions, several witnesses told Congress this week. But another witness said the current U.S. chip controls have so far failed and called on the government to rework its export control strategy.
David Sacks, the president's AI policy adviser, said the Biden-era AI diffusion export control rule was an “overreach” of U.S. export control authority and alienated American allies. The Bureau of Industry and Security’s plan to rescind the rule (see 2505070039 and 2505080026) was an “excellent decision,” he said last week.
Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., welcomed the Trump administration’s decision to rescind and replace the Biden administration’s AI diffusion rule (see 2505070039), while House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar, R-Mich., offered a more guarded response.
U.S. and Vietnamese officials met May 7 in Vietnam to discuss boosting trade between the two countries and possibly beginning negotiations on a new trade agreement, according to an unofficial translation of a Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade notice. Vietnamese Trade Minister Nguyen Hong Dien told Marc Knapper, the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, that the two nations should “promptly remove difficulties and obstacles” and “create favorable conditions for businesses in cooperation projects, as well as the purchase and sale of essential products.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security is preparing to publish a notice that will officially rescind the AI diffusion export control rule released by the Biden administration in January, according to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. BIS sent the notice for interagency review on May 7 (see 2505070039).
The EU should take lessons learned from the “effectively dormant” U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council (see 2503280039) and translate those into a new strategy for coordinating export controls and other trade issues with allies, the Paris-based Institut Montaigne think tank said in a report released this month.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is planning to replace the Biden-era AI diffusion rule that is scheduled to take effect May 15, an agency spokesperson said May 7.
The Census Bureau this week updated two license type codes in the Automated Export System to reflect which Export Control Classification Numbers can be used with those codes, which need to be reported for certain chip-related exports.
The Senate Banking Committee voted 13-11 along party lines May 6 to approve Landon Heid to be assistant secretary of commerce for export administration, sending his nomination to the full Senate for consideration.
Companies must spend more resources on export compliance, and governments need to do a better job of coordinating and updating multilateral export control lists, in order to prevent Russia, Iran and other “rogue actors” from buying as many sensitive dual-use goods, researchers said this week.