The Bureau of Industry and Security this week released a host of export control changes designed to ease license requirements and expand license exceptions for certain exports of pathogens and toxins, crime-control goods and missile technology items to U.S. allies. The agency also proposed changes to License Exception Strategic Trade Authorization (STA) to try to convince more exporters to use the exception.
New analysis from Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology includes a table of more than 100 types of semiconductors and whether they’re subject to U.S. export licensing requirements. CSET also said a new red flag recently published by the Bureau of Industry and Security could cause foundries to ask more questions of customers seeking to produce advanced chips.
The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee is pushing CBP to roll out its long-awaited electronic export manifest within the next COAC term and make progress on aligning truck manifests with both Canada and Mexico to streamline exports traveling by land.
The U.S. this week announced new sanctions and export controls against a host of companies and people for violating export restrictions against Russia, including a Belgian businessman and his defense component procurement network. Along with new Treasury Department sanctions, DOJ said it was preparing to release two indictments against the man, Hans De Geetere, and the Bureau of Industry and Security added De Geetere, his affiliated companies and other unrelated parties to the Entity List for illegally supplying Russia’s military and defense industrial base.
The U.S. will increasingly look to apply new export licensing requirements to entire countries rather than to specific companies, which could lead to a shift away from the Entity List, Commerce Secretary Gina Riamondo said. She also said the agency will continue targeting new artificial intelligence-related products developed by American semiconductor companies, such as Nvidia, that fall just below U.S. export control thresholds.
The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls issued a final rule last week to temporarily modify a note within its aircraft-related export controls under Category VIII of the U.S. Munitions List.
End-use certificates can be a good way to mitigate some sanctions and export control risk, but “it doesn't necessarily make the risk completely disappear,” said Jan Dunin-Wasowicz, a Hughes Hubbard trade lawyer. Dunin-Wasowicz cautioned companies about relying solely on end-use and end-user statements when conducting due diligence, adding that companies can take other compliance steps to vet a transaction, especially because some customers are willing to lie about a product's end-use.
The U.S. should place export controls and investment restrictions on Chinese drone maker Autel Robotics, which has ties to the country’s military and uses parts from at least one other Chinese company on the Entity List, the leaders of the House Select Committee on China said in a letter last week to the Biden administration. The lawmakers also said they’re concerned that the Chinese government uses Autel’s technology for human rights abuses in Xinjiang and that the company sells its products to Russia.
The Bureau of Industry and Security’s recent increase in enforcement of anti-boycott regulations signals the agency will “continue to be active in this space,” and companies may want to review their compliance programs, Arnold & Porter said in a Nov. 28 client advisory. “It may be time for U.S. companies and their foreign subsidiaries -- especially those conducting business in or involving the Middle East region -- to establish, review, and/or update their antiboycott compliance programs,” the firm said.
Republican leaders of the House Financial Services Committee urged Congress this week to exclude a measure from the upcoming 2024 defense spending bill that could lead to new guardrails around U.S. outbound investments into China. They said existing sanctions and export control measures are sufficient to target Chinese military and technology companies, and any new investment restrictions would only limit American “control, influence, and intelligence gathering” in China.