Iranian national Mehdi Khoshghadam violated U.S. export controls by illegally shipping electrical cables and connectors from the U.S. through Hong Kong and to Iran, DOJ said March 9. Khoshghadam was charged with one count of conspiracy, one count of violating of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. The indictment also seeks to forfeit all “proceeds” earned by Khoshghadam from the illegal exports.
The U.S. and India last week launched the India-U.S. Strategic Trade Dialogue to discuss “export controls, explore ways of enhancing high technology commerce, and facilitate technology transfer between countries,” the Commerce Department said. The effort will be led on the U.S. side by the Bureau of Industry and Security, Secretary Gina Raimondo said. “This is exciting because it’s an official government-to-government arrangement where we’re going to deepen our engagement with India, specifically around the area of aligning our export controls and sharing our information with one another.”
The U.S. is planning more export restrictions on semiconductor manufacturing items destined to China and could publish them as early as next month, Bloomberg reported March 10. The new restrictions could “double the number of machines” that require export licenses, the report said, placing new controls on Applied Materials and other chip equipment makers. The Biden administration plans to coordinate the new restrictions with the Netherlands and Japan, but “doesn’t plan to water down its plans if those other nations adopt weaker guidelines,” the report said.
The Bureau of Industry and Security plans to expand its university outreach program to include more schools that may be working on export-controlled technologies, said Matt Axelrod, the agency’s top export enforcement official. Axelrod, speaking during an academic security seminar last week, also outlined the BIS compliance expectations for researchers, warning that not all fundamental research is exempt from export licensing requirements.
The Biden administration's FY 2024 budget request includes funding to support a new outbound investment review “program” and more money for U.S. agencies to carry out export control and sanctions authorities.
The Bureau of Industry and Security should “significantly” strengthen export controls against Huawei to further restrict the Chinese technology company from buying U.S.-origin items, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in a March 6 letter to the agency. Although McCaul applauded its use of the Entity List and the foreign direct product rule to “curtail Huawei’s unconstrained march to dominate 5G telecommunications systems globally,” he said more should be done.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking public comments on an information collection relating to technology letters of explanation. The letters provide the agency with a description of a technology in a license application, allowing BIS technical staff to "evaluate the impact of licensing the export on United States national security and foreign policy." It also requires the “consignee” to certify that an export involving controlled technical data will not be released to blocked people or entities. Comments are due May 8.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week suspended the export privileges of four people for illegally exporting weapons, ammunition and other items to Mexico and Iran.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking public comments on an information collection involving voluntary self-disclosures of antiboycott violations. Comments are due May 8.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is preparing a mandatory survey for hundreds of U.S. space companies, suppliers and researchers to collect data on supply chains used by the U.S. space industrial base, the agency said this week. The effort -- which is a partnership among BIS, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- will help the agencies “identify the structure and interdependencies” of the space industrial base, especially those that work with NASA or NOAA.