Senior trade officials from the U.S., Japan and South Korea, during a meeting this week, discussed the importance of using export controls to stop foreign adversaries from acquiring their countries’ sensitive technologies, including semiconductors, clean energy technology and artificial intelligence. A readout of the meeting -- held with U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Saito Ken, and Korean Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Ahn Duk-geun -- said the countries want to “deepen our coordination of export controls on advanced technologies” and take other actions to improve the security of their supply chains.
Russia has been able to sustain its war effort against Ukraine because of its ability to evade Western export controls on key military parts and semiconductors, said Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow with the Europe, Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She said Russia is importing large amounts of controlled items from China and continuing to indirectly buy from Eastern European nations like Turkey through transshipment tactics and shell companies.
The State Department sent an interim final rule for interagency review that would make “targeted revisions” to items on the U.S. Munitions List. The rule, sent to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs June 21, would revise and exclude USML entries that no longer warrant inclusion and add entries for critical and emerging technologies that warrant more strict export licensing requirements. The rule “also seeks to limit the items categorized” in USML Category XXI (Articles, Technical Data, and Defense Services Not Otherwise Enumerated) by “updating the appropriate USML paragraph,” the agency said.
Canada recently imposed export controls on five technologies related to quantum technology, advanced semiconductors and semiconductor equipment, the country said in a June 19 notice. The controls took effect June 20.
A government technical advisory committee is working on two reports about compliance challenges posed by the Bureau of Industry and Security's foreign direct product rule and its semiconductor export controls.
Members of the multilateral Australia Group in meetings earlier this month discussed dual-use export controls, updated the group’s control list and considered ways to better counter weapons proliferation, according to a statement of the group’s chair published by the State Department June 14.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is drafting an interim final rule that could introduce a new “Plurilateral Consensus Coalition” country group into the Export Administration Regulations. The rule, sent to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs June 11, would make additions and revisions to the Commerce Control List and put in place a new License Exception Plurilateral Consensus Coalition (PCC) for certain exports to countries in the coalition.
DOJ’s recent decision not to prosecute a biochemical company that was part of an illegal export scheme involving China (see 2406040069 and 2405220037) underscores the importance of companies being “particularly aggressive” about deciding whether to submit an early voluntary disclosure to the U.S. government, McGuire Woods said in a client alert. The firm noted that DOJ decided not to prosecute the company, MilliporeSigma, “because of its prompt disclosure soon after it detected suspicious activity” -- the company disclosed the issue one week after hiring an outside lawyer. “Companies that wait too long to disclose or affirmatively choose not to file voluntary self-disclosures are at greater risk of being prosecuted or forfeiting valuable cooperation credit,” the firm said.
A former senior Pentagon official last week said he’s hopeful the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) partnership will lead to more defense industry collaboration, but he also suggested the three countries need to be careful about loosening trade restrictions too much.
U.S. export controls on quantum technologies would be premature, because quantum is “in its infancy” and researchers are still studying its potential, said Sam Howell, an adjunct associate fellow with the Center for a New American Security’s Technology and National Security Program. “A lot of uncertainty” is around quantum, and so the impact of export controls on the technology's future is also unclear, she said.