Too Soon to Predict Changes to AI Diffusion Controls, Other BIS Rules, Official Says
It’s still unclear how the Trump administration will approach the Bureau of Industry and Security's artificial intelligence diffusion rule or any of the agency’s recently published proposed or interim final rules that haven’t yet taken effect, a Commerce Department official said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
The official, speaking this week on the condition of anonymity under a policy for certain career personnel at the BIS annual conference, said it’s “really too early to tell,” partly because the new administration hasn’t yet given agency officials a clear direction. The agency is still awaiting the potential confirmation of Landon Heid, the nominee for assistant secretary for export administration, and BIS Undersecretary Jeffrey Kessler was just sworn in this week (see 2503200011).
“What they think and communicate to us about that is going to make a big difference to what we do or don't do, and how we do it,” said the official, speaking broadly about the Trump administration. “I think you can anticipate that anything we've put out is going to be reviewed with fresh eyes, and I just really don't know how it is going to come out in a lot of cases.”
The Trump administration is expected to make changes to the AI diffusion rule published by the Biden administration in January, which set worldwide license requirements for certain advanced chip exports, among other things (see 2501130026). The Commerce official said BIS has been getting questions from industry about other rulemakings, including a December 2023 proposed rule that would make changes to License Exception Strategic Trade Authorization (see 2312070041) and a possible proposed rule to revise License Exception Additional Permissive Reexports (see 2311030004).