As U.S. government regulators continue to face pressure from Congress to more quickly place export restrictions on emerging technologies, the Commerce Department and industry officials are grappling with the potential ethical consequences of controls on a technology that could have groundbreaking medical benefits.
The Commerce Department and DOJ this week launched a new task force to “target illicit actors” and protect critical technologies from being acquired by “nation-state adversaries.” The Disruptive Technology Strike Force -- which will be led by Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security and DOJ’s National Security Division -- will focus on investigating and prosecuting criminal export violations, improving “administrative enforcement” of export controls, coordinating law enforcement actions and “disruption strategies” with U.S. allies and more.
Dutch chip company ASML may have violated export controls stemming from a data theft incident involving a now former employee, the company said in its 2022 annual report released this week. The semiconductor company also said it’s expecting the Netherlands to impose new export restrictions on advanced chip-related items to China but doesn’t expect the measures to take effect for “many months.”
A new set of recommendations previewed by a member of the Federal Maritime Commission this week could help carriers, ports, railroads and others better harmonize supply chain data and information sharing. Commissioner Carl Bentzel, speaking during a Feb. 15 Commerce Department advisory committee meeting, said he hopes to know this summer whether the FMC plans to move forward with a formal rulemaking.
The U.S., the EU and others can take steps to improve how they administer export controls, deliver guidance to industry and more efficiently target dangerous end users, experts said this week. One expert specifically called on the U.S. to revise the Entity List, which should better isolate the worst export control offenders.
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The Commerce Department is trying to find a way to screen outbound investments in a way that protects domestic commercial interests but limits collateral damage to businesses with interests outside the U.S., said Marisa Lago, the agency’s undersecretary for international trade. Lago’s comments came one day after Samm Sacks, an expert on U.S.-China technology policy issues, said the Biden administration hasn’t yet released an executive order to create an outbound investment screening regime because of discussions surrounding implementation challenges.
Customs brokers and forwarders commended an effort by CBP to modernize the export process for used self-propelled vehicles exports (USPVs), but said a range of questions “remain unanswered” about how the new pilot will work in practice. They also said CBP can make several improvements to the pilot, including by allowing filers to submit electronic export documents before a vehicle is delivered to the port of export.
The U.K. and New Zealand have met certain investment screening requirements and will remain eligible for the Treasury Department’s excepted foreign state and excepted real estate foreign state provisions, the agency said last week. The determination adds both countries to the list of foreign nations that benefit from certain exemptions under the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. review process.
The Bureau of Industry and Security added six Chinese entities to the Entity List last week because of their ties to China’s “High Altitude Balloons'' intelligence and reconnaissance activities. BIS said the aerospace and technology entities support China’s military modernization efforts, particularly the People's Liberation Army’s aerospace programs, including “airships and balloons and related materials and components.” The move came days after the U.S. shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon in U.S. airspace.