The Trump administration appears to be avoiding new China-related controls on sensitive semiconductor manufacturing equipment because it fears those restrictions could impede a trade deal, a technology policy researcher said this week. Other researchers said the administration isn’t using its chip bargaining power correctly, adding that the U.S. should be getting more for the deals it has made so far with Gulf nations and potentially others in the future.
The Bureau of Industry and Security fined an industrial equipment supplier more than $1.57 million after the agency said it illegally exported refiner plates to Russia. The company, Pennsylvania-based Andritz Inc., committed 36 violations of the Export Administration Regulations by shipping more than $3.1 million worth of the plates without a license between May 2023 and February 2024, BIS said.
Michael Pender, a former longtime senior engineer with the Bureau of Industry and Security, is joining legal and advisory firm Fenwick as a trade analyst, he announced on LinkedIn. Pender left BIS at the end of April after first joining the agency in 2004.
The Trump administration is still wrestling with how exactly to scope its replacement for the Biden-era AI diffusion rule, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said.
The Bureau of Industry and Security has been ordered in recent months to avoid tough export controls on China as Washington tries to strike a trade deal with Beijing, the Financial Times reported July 28. The report comes after Trump administration officials said they planned to lift restrictions on Nvidia's H20 chip exports to China as part of an agreement that saw Beijing ease restrictions on rare earths (see 2507150013). The White House and BIS didn't respond to our requests for comment.
Cadence, a California-based electronic design automation firm, will pay more than $140 million in combined civil fines, criminal penalties and forfeitures to resolve allegations that it illegally exported technology to Chinese entities, DOJ and the Bureau of Industry and Security announced July 28. The company pleaded guilty to illegally exporting EDA hardware, software and semiconductor design intellectual property technology to the National University of Defense Technology, a university added to the Commerce Department's Entity List for its ties to the Chinese military, DOJ said.
The Trump administration is launching a new program to increase U.S. exports of AI technologies and services as part of an effort to spread the adoption of American AI systems around the world.
The Senate July 22 approved a House-passed bill that would require an annual report to Congress on where licensed dual-use goods are being sent abroad.
The U.S. should impose new export controls on the subsystems of semiconductor manufacturing equipment and double down on enforcement for exports of advanced AI chips, including by potentially mandating that chip exporters use location-tracking features, the White House said in its new AI action plan. While the plan calls for tighter controls against China and other “strategic adversaries,” it also said the U.S. should strike deals with other countries to export American AI systems around the world.
The Senate Appropriations Committee’s newly released report on the FY 2026 Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill (see 2507170053 and 2507100053) calls for the Bureau of Industry and Security to take several actions to inform lawmakers, including writing a report on international efforts to harmonize export controls on items that could aid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.