The Bureau of Industry needs better resources and technology, and the semiconductor industry needs better tracking tools, to prevent China from illegally receiving and accessing advanced chip technology, a researcher told a BIS advisory committee this week.
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The Bureau of Industry and Security for the past month has been led by a key Project 2025 contributor entrusted by the Trump administration with overseeing an export control policy review, an effort that resulted in a licensing pause and coincided with multiple senior career employees leaving the agency. BIS resumed processing and approving certain license applications around the same time the Trump official was removed from his position late last month, Export Compliance Daily has found.
Microsoft this week urged the Trump administration to rethink portions of a Biden-era rule that placed global export controls on certain shipments of advanced artificial intelligence chips, saying the rule will have unintended negative consequences on the American technology industry.
Jeffrey Kessler, President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Bureau of Industry and Security (see 2502040059), said at his Senate nomination hearing Feb. 27 that he has reservations about the agency’s latest export controls on advanced artificial intelligence chips and wants to scrutinize them. He also testified that he plans to examine whether BIS needs more resources and a reorganization.
The U.S. has so far declined to tell the EU how it chose the 18 countries that will benefit from mostly unrestricted access to advanced artificial intelligence chips under the Bureau of Industry and Security’s AI diffusion rule, the European Commission’s chief trade enforcement officer said this week, making it “very difficult” for EU officials to negotiate lifting the restrictions.
EU lawmakers and the European Commission offered a strong rebuke this week of the U.S.’s latest export controls on advanced artificial intelligence chips, saying the restrictions could slow European AI technology innovation and set unfair buying restrictions across member states.
The first few weeks of the new Trump administration have shown that there appears to be a “fair amount of continuity” from the Biden administration on certain China trade policies, including around export controls and outbound investment restrictions, a former Biden National Security Council official said.
The Senate Commerce Committee voted, 16-12, Feb. 5 to advance President Donald Trump’s choice of Howard Lutnick to be commerce secretary, sending the nomination to the full Senate for its consideration. The vote came days after Lutnick promised to scrutinize U.S. export controls on advanced artificial intelligence chips, telling lawmakers in recently published comments that a review of the restrictions will be “a top priority” if he’s confirmed.
U.S. export controls are increasingly trending toward unilateral, extraterritorial restrictions as opposed to multilateral ones, and that could continue under the administration of President Donald Trump, said Jeannette Chu, vice president for national security policy at the National Foreign Trade Council.