The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has 11 member countries since the U.S. backed out in 2016, has attracted four applications this year, from the United Kingdom, Taiwan, China and, most recently, South Korea. The U.S., which took a leading role in negotiating the high-standard free trade agreement, is unlikely to ask to come back in the next two years, panelists on a Hudson Institute discussion agreed.

The Commerce Department should immediately expand an exemption to allow U.S. companies to participate in standards-setting bodies that have members designated on the Entity List, industry representatives said. U.S. firms said they have been forced to avoid the bodies because they fear running afoul of U.S. export laws, a practice that could result in the U.S. losing important influence over the future of emerging technology standards.

China expressed serious concern over reports that the U.S. may impose tougher sanctions on the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, China's leading semiconductor manufacturer. In Dec. 15 comments, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry said that "by overstretching the concept of national security, certain US politicians politicize and instrumentalize science and technology and economic and trade issues based on ideology." The spokesperson said the sanctions would run contrary to market economy and fair competition principles and harm the prospect of security in global supply chains.

Beijing’s Wise Road Capital and South Korea's Magnachip Semiconductor Corporation terminated their merger, the two companies said this week. They received permission to withdraw their filing with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. after being told that CFIUS would not approve Wise Road’s acquisition of Magnachip.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed investment restrictions on SenseTime Group Ltd., a major Chinese technology company, and sanctioned 15 people and 10 other companies for human rights abuses, the agency said Dec. 10. SenseTime, which had prepared to price shares Dec. 10 in its initial public offering in Hong Kong, will now be subject to a U.S. investment ban and added to OFAC’s list of companies with ties to China’s military (see 2106030067).

The European Union should better align its definition of “basic scientific research” with the U.S.'s to create a more level playing field under U.S. and EU export regulations, said Aude Jalabert of the European Semiconductor Industry Association. Jalabert, speaking during the EU’s annual export control forum Dec. 8, said the EU’s definition is “stricter and maybe more narrow than some foreign definitions,” and only exempts “very basic technology and research fields.”

The U.S. and Taiwan will work together on a new Technology Trade and Investment Collaboration framework, which will look to “strengthen critical supply chains,” including those involving semiconductors, the Commerce Department said Dec. 6. The framework, announced after a call between Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Taiwan Minister of Economic Affairs Mei-hua Wang, will look to promote Taiwan investment in the U.S., Commerce said.

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories for Nov. 29 - Dec. 3 in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

The U.S. needs to work with global trading allies to find long-term fixes to the supply chain crisis that will transcend future American administrations, Matt Murray, senior bureau official in the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, told the Global Trade and Innovation Policy Alliance summit in a keynote Dec. 2. “We can’t just look at supply chain issues and say we need to fix it by Christmas because there are these short-term disruptions,” he said.

The Commerce Department is seeking nominations for a new Industrial Advisory Committee on microelectronics research development, manufacturing and policy, the agency said this week. The committee, to be composed equally of representatives from the semiconductor industry, federal laboratories and academic institutions, will advise the administration on how best to maintain U.S. leadership in microelectronics manufacturing and support the semiconductor sector. The agency will accept committee nominations on an ongoing basis “and will be considered as and when vacancies arise.”