More than 50 congressional Democrats, including Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., urged the Trump administration Oct. 27 to reverse its recent decision to roll back a Biden-era interim final rule that increased restrictions on firearms exports.
It seems unlikely that the Bureau of Industry and Security could withdraw its new 50% rule either due to industry pushback or as part of trade negotiations with China, said Matt Axelrod, the former BIS export enforcement chief.
Aaron Amundson, a former longtime official with the Bureau of Industry and Security, has joined Latham & Watkins' economic sanctions and export controls practice, the law firm announced Oct. 27. Amundson spent nearly two decades with BIS, including most recently as acting director of the Office of National Security Controls and director of the Information Technology Controls Division.
The U.S. has removed its arms embargo on Cambodia because of the country's "diligent pursuit of peace and security," the State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls announced Oct. 27.
A former State Department analyst on export control and sanctions evasion under President Joe Biden and a former National Security Council director for China under President George W. Bush agreed that the Bureau of Industry and Security's 50% rule was not fully thought through before its announcement.
The European Automobile Manufacturers Association said it's "deeply concerned" about potential disruptions to European vehicle manufacturing stemming from a trade dispute over Chinese-owned Dutch semiconductor firm Nexperia, especially "if the interruption of Nexperia chips supplies cannot be immediately resolved."
Open-source intelligence software firm WireScreen said it has identified more than 20,000 Chinese entities that are subject to U.S. export restrictions as a result of the Bureau of Industry and Security's 50% rule, released last month (see 2510030041 and 2509290017).
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Oct. 17 rejected both the government’s and law firm Husch Blackwell’s motions for judgment in a Freedom of Information Act dispute involving the Entity List. It gave the Commerce Department time to provide adequate justifications for its decisions to withhold certain information but said the ones it already provided weren’t enough (Husch Blackwell v. Department of Commerce, D.D.C. # 24-2733.
President Donald Trump told reporters that unless China stops fentanyl shipments, resumes buying U.S. soybeans and stops playing "the rare earth game with us," he won't lower tariffs.
U.S. export controls on design technology for advanced computing chips have spurred China to speed up pursuing its own capabilities, according to a new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.