Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., urged the Commerce Department last week to immediately revoke all export licenses to China’s Huawei, saying the Bureau of Industry and Security is allowing a foreign adversary's company to obtain too much advanced U.S. technology.
The Commerce Department should start preparing export controls for dual-use artificial intelligence models, which could prevent those models from being used to make biosecurity weapons or skirt U.S. export restrictions on advanced semiconductors, researchers told the agency in comments released this month. But technology companies and industry groups warned the U.S. against overbroad controls, which they said could hurt American AI innovation.
Russia is still able to buy semiconductors for its war effort -- especially from China -- despite Western sanctions and export controls, a semiconductor policy researcher said in a new report this month. Although the restrictions are forcing Russia to pay almost double for some chips and require Russian supply chain managers to constantly find new supply lines, the report said Chinese suppliers are increasingly filling the market gap left by companies in the U.S. and elsewhere who are adhering to the export restrictions.
U.S. exports of semiconductors and their components to China dropped 39% to $6.8 billion in 2023 and were down 52% from their 2021 peak, partly due to restrictions the Bureau of Industry and Security released in October 2022 and expanded a year later (see [Ref:2310170055), the U.S.-China Business Council said April 23.
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Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said April 17 she’s concerned that a host of upcoming elections around the world could fuel harmful sentiment against international trade.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai gave testimony April 17 to the Senate Finance Committee regarding President Joe Biden’s 2024 trade policy agenda. She touched mainly on trade deal enforcement, U.S. exporters’ access to new markets and the USTR’s new stance on digital trade, though she also discussed issues such as forced labor and the upcoming legislation on the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y, criticized the Biden administration last week for reportedly allowing Intel to export “cutting-edge chip technology” to China’s Huawei for use in the new Matebook X Pro computer, even though Huawei has been on the Commerce Department’s Entity List since 2019 (see 1905160072).
U.S. companies should expect more retaliation from China if the Bureau of Industry and Security adds more major Chinese technology firms to its Entity List this year, Paul Trulio, a China and technology policy expert, said during an event last week hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Trulio and other panelists also said it’s unclear exactly how a possible second Trump administration may tweak U.S. export control policy toward Beijing, but they said it’s possible former President Donald Trump, if reelected, could significantly increase restrictions on Chinese firms through potential financial sanctions and may pressure allies to do the same.
The U.S. and Japan agreed to continue cooperating around technology export controls in a meeting between their two top commerce ministers April 10.