The Bureau of Industry and Security should clarify a number of items related to its new upcoming export controls on certain electronic computer-aided design (ECAD) software (see 2208120038 and 2208250036), including its definition for “specially designed,” semiconductor companies told the agency in comments this month. BIS should also consider updating other areas of the control, some said, including making it eligible for License Exception TSR (Technology and software under restriction).

Peter Kisang Kim, a former engineer at Broadcom, was sentenced to eight months in prison for stealing trade secrets from Broadcom, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced Sept. 20. A Ben Lomond, California, resident, Kim in May pleaded guilty to three counts of stealing trade secrets to help his new company's business prospects. Fifteen other counts of trade secrets theft were dismissed in connection with his sentencing. Following his incarceration, Kim will serve a three-year supervised release term.

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Apple should “rethink” any decision to purchase chips from China’s Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., wrote in a Sept. 14 letter to the U.S. technology company. Cotton said Apple and “far too many” other American businesses “already rely on China for manufacturing and supplies. Adding another Chinese company to Apple’s supply chain, particularly one with close ties” to the Chinese government and military, “compounds these risks.”

A Bureau of Industry and Security official last week confirmed the agency sent letters to specific companies restricting their ability to export certain artificial intelligence-related chips to China, and said more restrictions may be coming. In the agency’s first public comments on the matter, Thea Kendler, BIS’s assistant secretary for export administration, said the agency hopes the letters help inform industry about the types of exports the agency is scrutinizing.

Despite the fact that the administration has not opened any formal free trade agreement negotiations in two years, the House Ways and Means Committee chairman said he's confident a trade agreement can be reached with Taiwan.

While the Biden administration hasn't yet decided whether to establish an outbound investment screening regime, officials believe more investment screening could help fill certain gaps in semiconductor-related export controls, said Peter Harrell, a National Security Council official. Harrell said an outbound regime also could provide the U.S. with more information about global semiconductor investments, which could be useful as the U.S. seeks to stop China from acquiring advanced chip equipment.

Electric vehicle manufacturing and supply chain resilience in semiconductors continued as major topics in the U.S.-Mexico High-Level Economic Dialogue, and pharmaceutical supply chain resilience is now also on the agenda, according to a joint statement after the HLED in Mexico City Sept. 12.

U.S. goods exports to China this year are on pace with the low export numbers from 2021, although energy exports have dropped 13% and semiconductor exports continue to suffer, the Peterson Institute for International Economics said this week. And even though agricultural exports to China are up 16% this year, Chinese purchases of U.S. goods are still falling well short of commitments made under the Trump administration’s phase one trade deal, PIIE said. “The promise” of President Donald Trump's “trade war and agreement was that things should have been much better for US exporters by now.”

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