The Census Bureau is still deciding whether to introduce a country of origin reporting requirement in the Automated Export System despite receiving mostly opposing comments on the proposal, with trade groups saying the change could lead to costly compliance challenges (see 2203160026 and 2301230008). Gerry Horner, chief of the agency’s trade regulations branch, said the division should be meeting with upper management “very soon” to decide on the best path forward.
The head of TikTok said the U.S. shouldn't have concerns about its parent company, ByteDance, even as lawmakers said they believe the Chinese government can use the company to access sensitive data collected by the app. TikTok CEO Shou Chew said the app is not controlled by China and said it has built a firewall to prevent U.S. personal data from “unauthorized foreign access.”
The EU is “assessing” whether to create an outbound investment screening regime, which could help it address “gaps” in its dual-use export controls, Valdis Dombrovskis, the bloc’s top trade official, told the European Parliament this week. “We're currently at the exploratory stage,” he said.
New frequently asked questions on the Bureau of Industry and Security's October China chip controls are “almost through their clearance process,” Sharron Cook, a BIS official, said during a Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee meeting this week. “Those should be up shortly,” she said.
The Bureau of Industry and Security will soon request feedback from industry, academia and others on key differences in U.S. and EU interpretations of export control provisions, said Charles Wall, BIS’ senior policy adviser for the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council. Wall, speaking during a BIS technical advisory committee meeting this week, said the notice will ask for “very specific information” on discrepancies between the two territories' export control regimes and ways those rules can be harmonized.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is hoping its new Disruptive Technology Strike Force leads to more investigations of export control violations, faster prosecutions and more criminal enforcement actions, said John Sonderman, director of the BIS Office of Export Enforcement. The agency also is looking to clamp down on U.S.-origin items ending up in Iranian drones, said Kevin Kurland of OEE, warning that companies should make sure they’re complying with the new Iran Foreign Direct Product Rule issued last month.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is preparing to publish a proposed rule that would expand the agency’s restrictions on certain activities that support foreign military, security or intelligence services. The rule, expected next week, would implement a provision in the FY 2023 defense spending bill that one lawmaker hailed as the “largest expansion of presidential export control authority in several years” (see 2212210032).
Two senators introduced a bill last week that could lead to the creation of a civil nuclear export strategy. The International Nuclear Energy Act, reintroduced by Sens. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and Joe Manchin, D-W.V., would call on the White House to establish an office to coordinate a nuclear exports strategy with trading partners, promote regulatory harmonization and development of a standardized licensing framework, create a nuclear exports working group and more.
The U.S. needs to impose more sanctions and export controls to prevent nuclear collaboration between Russia’s Rosatom and China, which is helping to support Russia’s war in Ukraine and allowing China to acquire enough weapons grade plutonium to “fuel its strategic nuclear breakout,” Republican House leaders said this week. Although the lawmakers said they were “heartened” to see the new set of sanctions against Russia last month (see 2302240028), which included designations targeting three Rosatom subsidiaries, they called for more.
The U.S. needs to reform the International Traffic in Arms Regulations to allow it to more easily share controlled technologies with the U.K., Australia and other close allies (see 2302170022), experts said last week. If Congress and the administration don’t move quickly to relax ITAR restrictions, the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) partnership will fail, they said, and U.S. military capabilities could fall behind China and other countries.