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.
The Bureau of Industry and Security updated its restricted aircraft list by adding three Iranian-owned and operated planes for violating U.S. export controls, the agency said in an emailed news release. BIS said the planes -- which are owned by Mahan Air, Qeshm Fars Air and Iran Air and are the first Iranian aircraft added to the list -- illegally provided flight services to Russia. Certain activities involving the planes, including maintenance and repair, are now subject to restrictions outlined in General Prohibition 10 of the Export Administration Regulations.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is on pace to detain almost as many exports to Russia this year as the agency detained in 2021 for the entire world, said Matthew Axelrod, the agency’s top export enforcement official. In the six months since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he said, the U.S. has detained nearly 240 shipments to Russia worth more than $93 million.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week announced a host of measures to expand its export restrictions against Russia and Belarus, including an expansion of its Russian industry sector sanctions to add new export controls on lower-level items. The agency also expanded its military and military intelligence end-user controls, applied its Russian-Belarusian MEU foreign direct product rule to additional entities, added additional dollar value exclusion thresholds for certain luxury goods exports and more.
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.
A new Commerce Department rule aimed at making it easier for certain U.S. technologies to be shared at standards-setting bodies will “undermine” U.S. efforts to protect those sensitive technologies from being acquired by China, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said. Although the rule, issued last week (see 2209080038), sought to allow the participation of U.S. companies in international standards bodies that have members on the Entity List, McCaul said it also undermines U.S. export restrictions. “Companies that are entity-listed are threats to national security, and we need real safeguards to ensure sensitive technology is not transferred to these bad actors,” said McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
After several years of delays, Commerce Department officials said industry may soon see progress on the agency’s long-awaited routed export rule. Although the rule is unlikely to be published this year, officials this week said they are hoping to prioritize the effort in the coming months, which could include major changes to the process around assigning filing responsibilities to forwarders and address information sharing among parties in routed export transactions (see 2006020049).
Two senior Bureau of Industry and Security officials are in Singapore this week to discuss emerging technology export controls with their government counterparts in Asia and Europe and members of industry. BIS said Thea Kendler, the agency’s assistant secretary for export administration, and Matthew Axelrod, the agency’s top enforcement official, will discuss the multilateral response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and will speak about export control laws and regulations at several events organized alongside a range of trading partners. In addition, Kendler will speak at the inaugural Women in Strategic Trade Conference Sept. 14, which “provides an opportunity to collaborate internationally on increased opportunities for women in export controls.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security completed an interagency review for a final rule that would implement certain export control decisions agreed to at the multilateral Australia Group. The rule, sent for review last month (see 2208180018) and completed Sept. 9, would place controls on certain marine toxins, plant pathogens and biological equipment.
The Commerce Department is planning to expand export controls over certain semiconductor items destined to China (see 2208010011) next month, including those used for artificial intelligence and chipmaking tools, Reuters reported Sept. 11. Commerce already outlined some new restrictions in letters earlier this year to KLA, Lam Research and Applied Materials, Reuters said, which include new export licensing requirements on chipmaking equipment to Chinese factories capable of making chips more advanced than 14 nanometers. The new rules would also codify restrictions outlined by Commerce in letters to NVIDIA and AMD last month (see 2209010059), the report said.