A new Defense Department policy memo and guidance on foreign influence within American research institutions could exacerbate already complex export control due diligence challenges at universities, said Jackson Wood, director for industry strategy at Descartes. It also could lead to larger compliance risks for universities pursuing DOD-funded research, said Kit Conklin of compliance risk advisory firm Kharon.

On a panel on critical minerals ally-shoring, panelists representing the perspective of Latin America, the U.S., the EU and, to some degree, China, agreed that the current race to lock down supplies of the raw materials needed for advanced batteries, wind turbines and computer chips is one where every man is out for himself, and resource-rich countries in the Global South are exploited.

Republicans are asking the Biden administration to strengthen export controls against Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Company after Huawei this month unveiled a new smartphone that may have been made through means that violated U.S. export restrictions (see 2309120005). They said both technology companies should be subject to “full blocking sanctions” and their executives should face criminal investigations, adding that the Commerce Department should revoke all of their existing license applications, add all their subsidiaries to the Entity List and take other measures to cut off a broad range of shipments to both firms.

The U.S. doesn't have to sacrifice innovation when imposing new regulations on artificial intelligence, including through potential export controls, said Jack Corrigan, a senior research analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET). Corrigan said there is always “tension” between the government’s desire to issue restrictions and industry’s drive to develop new technologies, but “as it relates to AI, regulation doesn't necessarily need to get in the way of innovation.”

The U.S. should push World Trade Organization members to "revisit what constitutes good and bad subsidies," which may help encourage transparency and improve "enforcement through incentives for compliance and penalties for noncompliance," the Council on Foreign Relations said in a new report.

The Commerce Department is looking into whether a Chinese-made chip powering Huawei's latest smartphone was made or acquired through means that violated U.S. export controls, an agency official said this week. “We are working to obtain more information on the character and composition of the purported 7nm chip” included in Huawei’s new Mate 60 Pro+ smartphone, the official said. The Chinese telecommunications company announced the new phone during Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s trip to China earlier this month.

A recent Congressional Research Service report on U.S.-Mexican trade relations noted that members of Congress have varying views on USMCA, the trade deal that has integrated North American supply chains, particularly in the auto industry.

China’s commerce minister last week voiced “serious concerns” with U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo about U.S. semiconductor export control policies, investment restrictions, “discriminatory subsidies” and sanctions on Chinese companies, a ministry spokesperson told reporters during an Aug. 31 news conference. The minister also asked Raimondo for the U.S. to treat all companies “equally in terms of market access, regulatory enforcement, public procurement, and policy support,” the spokesperson said, according to an unofficial translation.

U.S. officials during their trip to China this week outlined expectations for end-use checks in the country and rebuffed requests from Beijing to reduce export restrictions on advanced technology, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said. While the American contingent isn’t leaving China with concrete resolutions to trade issues, she said she believes commitments from both sides to increase communication, including as part of an export control enforcement working group, were a positive first step.

The U.S. government must take a host of actions to slow down Chinese "techno-economic dominance," including preventing Chinese firms from being listed on U.S. stock markets and limiting investment into China, Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said in an Aug. 28 post.