Congress should create a new, “permanent” committee in the executive branch tasked with planning sanctions against China under “a range of possible scenarios,” including if it invades Taiwan, a congressional commission said this week. The bipartisan commission also said the Commerce Department should provide Congress with regular enforcement and licensing reports on certain China-related export control decisions and said the administration should create a new list of Chinese firms that should be subject to strict export licensing requirements.
U.S. and foreign companies “seem to be equally confused” by the Bureau of Industry and Security's new China chip export restrictions (see 2210070049), said Alison Stafford-Powell, a trade compliance lawyer with Baker McKenzie, speaking Nov. 15 during a virtual event hosted by the law firm. She called the new BIS rule “incredibly complex" and said industry needs more guidance from the agency.
The Bureau of Industry and Security's new administrative enforcement policies, including higher penalties for more serious violations, hasn’t led to a significant rise or fall in voluntary self-disclosures so far, said Matthew Axelrod, the agency’s top export enforcement official. Axelrod, speaking during a Nov. 14 event hosted by the Society for International Affairs, said BIS received 150 new VSDs since the policy change in June (see 2206300069), which he said was about the same number it received during the same time period each of the last two years.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking public comments on an information collection related to “miscellaneous licensing responsibilities and enforcement.” The collection involves various activities that “do not involve submission of documents to the BIS but instead involve exchange of documents among parties in the export transaction to ensure that each party understands its obligations under U.S. law,” the agency said in a notice released this week. Other activities involve writing export control statements on shipping documents or reporting “unforeseen changes in shipping and disposition of exported commodities.” The activities are needed by the Office of Export Enforcement and CBP to document exports and enforce the Export Administration Regulations. Comments are due Jan. 9.
The new U.S. chip controls against China (see 2210070049 and 2211010042) mark a “major escalation” in the U.S.-China technology war and will likely have a significant effect on China’s technology capabilities, Bank of America said this week. The bank also warned that the controls, which are “more comprehensive and stricter than what we have seen in the past,” could ultimately open the “door to more sweeping restrictions in other domains like leading edge manufacturing.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security should avoid placing export controls on automated peptide synthesizers, U.S. companies said, arguing that the restrictions would hurt U.S. technological leadership and wouldn't do much to limit the proliferation of biological weapons. A Chinese national academy also opposed the controls, saying they could stifle global research and innovation.
A U.S. hardware supplier said it may have violated U.S. export controls by selling to a Chinese foundry on the Entity List. MaxLinear, which sells highly integrated radio-frequency analog and mixed-signal semiconductor products, disclosed it submitted an "initial notification" of voluntary self-disclosure to the Bureau of Industry and Security in October and its sale may have violated the Export Administration Regulations because it never obtained a license.
As U.S. chip and technology companies continue to grapple with the U.S’s latest export restrictions on China (see 2211010042), a number of firms fear the controls will hurt their sales and exacerbate uncertainty in the semiconductor sector and the industry’s supply chains. In filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission this month, at least one firm projected revenue losses while others said they are still assessing the impact of the complex controls and whether they can secure export licenses.
U.S. chip companies may need to wait as long as nine months before the U.S. can come to an agreement with allies on multilateral China chip controls, Bloomberg reported Nov. 3. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, speaking last week to Lam Research, KLA and other chip companies, said the U.S. is working on an agreement with the Netherlands and Japan, but such a deal could take six to nine months, the report said.
A United Arab Emirates company violated U.S. export controls by shipping or trying to ship more than $50,000 worth of U.S.-origin telecommunications items to Syria and Iran, the Bureau of Industry and Security said in a charging letter released last week. The company, WEBS Electronics Trading Company, and its owner, Mohammad Alhamra, also lied to a BIS agent when it said it didn’t export to Syria.