The Trump administration’s request for an increased budget allocation for the Bureau of Industry and Security (see 2505020030) signals that export enforcement will be one of the administration's top priorities, said Gregory Allen, director of the Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The U.S. needs to better enforce its existing export controls on advanced AI chips and chip equipment while bolstering its ability to screen Chinese investments that may be looking to evade those restrictions, several witnesses told Congress this week. But another witness said the current U.S. chip controls have so far failed and called on the government to rework its export control strategy.
David Sacks, the president's AI policy adviser, said the Biden-era AI diffusion export control rule was an “overreach” of U.S. export control authority and alienated American allies. The Bureau of Industry and Security’s plan to rescind the rule (see 2505070039 and 2505080026) was an “excellent decision,” he said last week.
The U.K. this week fined a fuel transportation company about $6,600, or 5,000 pounds, for failing to respond to a request for information from the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation. OFSI said U.K.-registered Svarog Shipping & Trading Company Limited, which does business in the maritime oil shipment sector in Cyprus, didn’t respond in time to OFSI questions last year despite receiving “multiple reminders” about the deadline.
The Treasury Department will create a new fast-track process for certain deals filed with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., the agency announced May 8, saying the process will help encourage more investments in American businesses from close U.S. allies.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is planning to replace the Biden-era AI diffusion rule that is scheduled to take effect May 15, an agency spokesperson said May 7.
The European Commission this week outlined a new plan to gradually phase out imports of Russian oil, gas and nuclear energy while diversifying European energy imports by buying more from other markets. The “roadmap” details a series of proposals the commission plans to make in the coming weeks, including one that would ban all new and existing Russian gas spot contracts by the end of the year and all remaining Russian gas imports by 2027.
Companies must spend more resources on export compliance, and governments need to do a better job of coordinating and updating multilateral export control lists, in order to prevent Russia, Iran and other “rogue actors” from buying as many sensitive dual-use goods, researchers said this week.
Although the Bureau of Industry and Security's AI diffusion export control rule has sparked broad pushback from some U.S. allies, it appears to take a “strong step” toward improving BIS efforts to prevent chip smuggling to China, said researchers with the Center for a New American Security. If the Trump administration decides to tweak parts of the rule or revoke it altogether, the researchers warned, the U.S. will need to find other ways for BIS to better enforce its chip controls.
Companies subject to U.S. investment screening are hoping the Trump administration takes a more predictable approach to reviews by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., including by focusing on purely national security concerns, industry officials said this week.