Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, urged the Bureau of Industry and Security on Aug. 11 to “move quickly” to remove its export controls on Syria to help the country recover from a 14-year civil war.
The Trump administration may consider expanding the revenue-sharing arrangements that it reached with Nvidia and AMD to other U.S. companies, the White House said this week.
Reps. Jason Crow, D-Colo., and Tom Kean, R-N.J., reintroduced a bill Aug. 8 that would authorize $100 million over four years to upgrade the Bureau of Industry and Security’s aging information technology systems.
Pacific Biosciences of California, an American biotechnology firm, said it recently informed the Bureau of Industry and Security about possible export violations involving China.
Semiconductor companies Nvidia and AMD are expected to pay the U.S. government a portion of the profits they earn from selling certain controlled chips to China, an arrangement that has sparked concerns and questions among exporters, lawmakers and former government officials.
The Bureau of Industry and Security has named Robby Saunders, a former senior adviser with both BIS and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., the agency's new deputy assistant secretary for technology security. Saunders was the former vice president of national security at the Coalition for Prosperous America before joining Scott's staff in 2023 and BIS in March, according to her LinkedIn. She replaces longtime senior BIS official Eric Longnecker (see 2505050005),
The Bureau of Industry and Security sent a final rule for interagency review that would revise Biden-era regulations that increased restrictions on firearms exports. The rule, sent for review Aug. 4, is expected to reverse some of those restrictions amid lobbying from gun industry advocates (see 2505290012). Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in June that the Biden-era rule was "inconsistent with our views" (see 2506050050).
The U.S. last week arrested and accused two Chinese nationals of using a California-based company to illegally export tens of millions of dollars' worth of advanced AI semiconductors to China, including by first transshipping the chips through Malaysia and Singapore.
The Trump administration plans to maintain strict China-related export controls on the most advanced semiconductors and chip manufacturing equipment, a senior White House official said last week, adding that the U.S. also doesn’t plan to automatically greenlight all H20 chip exports to China.
Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., a member of the committee, urged the Trump administration July 31 to reinstate provisions of the recently rescinded AI diffusion export control rule that are designed to discourage U.S. companies from offshoring critical AI infrastructure and ensure that the technology that is exported is not misused.