The U.S. and China launched a new commercial trade working group and a new pathway to exchange information on export control enforcement, two initiatives to allow the countries to better communicate around sensitive trade issues, the Commerce Department announced during meetings between Washington and Beijing officials this week. The export enforcement information sharing initiative, which will meet for the first time this week, is aimed at reducing “misunderstanding” surrounding U.S. policies toward China, Commerce said, including export restrictions on critical and sensitive technologies.
American chipmaker Nvidia continued to raise alarms this week about the potential of additional export restrictions on the U.S. semiconductor industry, saying new rules will hurt its long-term sales to China.
The Biden administration’s road to implement regulations for its outbound investment executive order will be “incredibly complex,” particularly if agencies disagree on how narrow or broad to scope the restrictions,Thomas Feddo, a former Treasury Department official, said during a webinar this week. Lawyers on the webinar said investors are “very concerned” about the rules having a potential “chilling” effect on a broad range of investments, especially if the government fails to adequately define a range of key terms in the executive order.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo will visit Beijing and Shanghai Aug. 27-30 to meet with senior Chinese officials and business leaders, the agency announced Aug. 22. Raimondo looks “forward to constructive discussions on issues relating to the U.S.-China commercial relationship, challenges faced by U.S. businesses, and areas for potential cooperation.” China's Ministry of Commerce, according to an unofficial translation, said Raimondo's planned visit is "at the invitation of Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao." Ahead of the trip, the U.S. Commerce Department said, Raimondo met with Chinese ambassador Xie Feng and had a "productive discussion."
British semiconductor company Arm, in its initial U.S. public offering this week, said it’s facing uncertainty from U.S. and U.K. export controls and doesn’t expect to receive an export license to ship certain high performance processor cores to China. The company also said it’s expecting to see slower growth in its China sales revenue due to several factors, including various government-imposed “trade and national security policies.”
The Commerce Department is giving a selection committee more time to choose the board members for a National Semiconductor Technology Center (see 2304250032), a key piece of the Chips Act designed to bring together the government, national labs, chip companies, suppliers, academia, investors and others to collaborate on semiconductor matters. Commerce announced members of the selection committee in June and planned for the committee to “automatically terminate” by Aug. 31, but the agency said this week the committee “would benefit from additional time to complete this important task.” The termination date will now be Sept. 30.
Republicans last week urged the Biden administration against meeting with Beijing to discuss semiconductor export controls, saying the U.S. should not negotiate its policies with China and should instead enact tougher restrictions. They specifically asked Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who is considering a trip to China, to pledge that the U.S. plans to increase its export restrictions against the country.
China is planning “countermeasures” to respond to the Biden administration's recent executive order on outbound investment, a Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesperson told reporters this week. The spokesperson said China has “serious concerns” about the restrictions -- which will eventually lead to prohibitions and notification requirements for U.S. investment in three advanced technology sectors in China -- and said the U.S. is “harming others and harming itself.”
New Indian import restrictions on computers and other electronics could “significantly disrupt” trade, including U.S. exports, eight industry groups wrote in a letter this week to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. The groups -- representing the American semiconductor, electronics, manufacturing and retail industries -- asked the Biden administration to raise the issue with the Indian government “as a matter of urgency.”
China’s recently imposed export controls on gallium and germanium (see 2307050018) -- two metals used to produce semiconductors -- were for legitimate national security reasons, Beijing said this week, rebuking comments from U.S. officials and lawmakers who have said the restrictions have no justification (see 2307060053). In an Aug. 9 post on Chinese social media site Weixin, the National Security Ministry said the country's national security concerns stem from an incident in 2009, when an employee working for a global mining company in China tried to access “detailed technical analysis of dozens of Chinese iron and steel enterprises and accurate parameters of each production process.”