The EU will consider upcoming U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum as it enters the final stages of a review of its steel safeguard measures (see 2412180032), with the aim of protecting European firms from import surges caused by the coming tariffs, said Leopoldo Rubinacci, the European Commission’s deputy director-general for trade.
The U.S. has so far declined to tell the EU how it chose the 18 countries that will benefit from mostly unrestricted access to advanced artificial intelligence chips under the Bureau of Industry and Security’s AI diffusion rule, the European Commission’s chief trade enforcement officer said this week, making it “very difficult” for EU officials to negotiate lifting the restrictions.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is facing a backlog of export license applications and a barrage of questions from industry after applications were put on hold earlier this month, although the agency hopes to see processing slowly return to normal as political appointees are put in place, Export Compliance Daily has learned.
Companies in the Czech Republic plan to ask the Bureau of Industry and Security to loosen restrictions on U.S. exports of advanced artificial intelligence chips that were put in place as part of a BIS rule in January that tightened controls for nations around the world.
Companies shouldn’t expect a significant amount of early enforcement action from the U.K.’s new Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation, which isn’t yet a finished product, its leader, Anna Deibel-Jung, said last week.
The State Department needs a better system to review export license applications for firearms, and the Bureau of Industry and Security needs to address employee shortages that are hindering its end-use checks for those exports, the Government Accountability Office said in a new report.
Although the new administration appears to be gearing up to build on U.S. outbound investment restrictions against China, President Donald Trump’s affinity toward dealmaking means that tighter rules aren’t a guarantee, an analyst said. Other analysts said the U.S. will face challenges trying to convince its allies in Asia, including Japan and South Korea, to also impose restrictions on outbound deals in China.
The Bureau of Industry and Security has paused reviews of new export license applications submitted this month, without explanation, causing concern and frustration among exporters and trade compliance officials.
EU lawmakers and the European Commission offered a strong rebuke this week of the U.S.’s latest export controls on advanced artificial intelligence chips, saying the restrictions could slow European AI technology innovation and set unfair buying restrictions across member states.
The first few weeks of the new Trump administration have shown that there appears to be a “fair amount of continuity” from the Biden administration on certain China trade policies, including around export controls and outbound investment restrictions, a former Biden National Security Council official said.