Senior export control and sanctions officials with the U.S., the EU and the U.K. traveled to Kazakhstan this week to discuss countering Russia’s attempts at sanctions evasion, the Treasury Department said. The group -- which included Elizabeth Rosenberg, Treasury’s assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, and Matt Axelrod, the Bureau of Industry and Security's assistant secretary for export enforcement -- met with government officials in the country, along with businesses, to share information and “offer assistance to help facilitate compliance,” Treasury said.

NEW ORLEANS -- The Bureau of Industry and Security is working with CBP to try to speed up reviews of exports that may be subject to the October China chip controls (see 2210070049), said Teresa Telesco, a BIS official. Telesco, speaking April 25 during the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America’s annual conference, urged freight forwarders and other parties handling exports to take steps to make sure their semiconductor-related shipments aren’t being delayed, including by having technical information “on hand” to show CBP agents.

The Commerce Department launched a paper this week detailing its strategy for a National Semiconductor Technology Center, a “key component” of the Chips Act designed to support and improve American leadership and competitiveness in semiconductor research, design, engineering and advanced manufacturing. The paper outlines how the NSTC will “accelerate America’s ability to develop the chips and technologies of the future,” the agency said, including by creating “affiliated technical centers around the country.”

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, whose agency is negotiating three of four pillars of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, said: "We believe that this year we will be able to finalize the IPEF."

The Biden administration could first release its outbound investment screening regime as a trial period and then expand the restrictions to cover broader investments after the initial year, said Anna Ashton, director of China corporate affairs at the Eurasia Group. Ashton, speaking during an April 21 event hosted by the University of Virginia's Miller Center, also said current U.S. chips subsidies will fall far short of making up for lost U.S semiconductor exports to China, while other experts said they fear U.S. chip export controls (see 2210070049) will continue to cause foreign companies to “design-out” American technology and software.

The U.S. should work with China in select artificial intelligence areas instead of imposing sweeping export controls that create financial incentives for companies to “design-out” U.S. technology, Paul Scharre, vice president and director of studies at the Center for a New American Security, said in an April 18 opinion article for Time Magazine. While current U.S. restrictions on semiconductors exports to China are “narrowly targeted,” he said they will “de facto grow over time as chips advance and the threshold for export controls remains the same.”

The U.S. is still “considering” a new outbound investment screening regime, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said this week, stressing that any restrictions would be “narrowly scoped and targeted to clear objectives.”

The U.S. and Mexican governments have reportedly made progress toward better aligning their Authorized Economic Operation programs, according to a "mid-year review" fact sheet on the U.S.-Mexico High-Level Economic Dialogue, released April 19. In the last six months, CBP provided training for the Mexican AEO team and in February, the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism and AEO Mexico representatives worked together to modify the Minimum-Security Criteria requirements for Mexico’s AEO program, which Mexico anticipates will be published in April after its legal review and approval by the Mexican Secretariat for Home Affairs, the fact sheet said.

Nations allowing the export to Russia of dual-use products that have military as well as commercial applications are on notice, Commerce Deputy Secretary Don Graves said April 19 at the Space Foundation's 2023 Space Symposium. "Any country ... that seeks to backfill the Russian war machine ... does so at their own peril," he warned. Export controls by the U.S. and 38 other nations aimed at dual-use products such as semiconductors and lasers are "hobbling" the Russian war effort in Ukraine, he said.

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