The Commerce Department announced new export restrictions April 26 that it says are intended to reduce the risk that firearms end up in the hands of criminals, terrorists or cartels.

The Commerce Department should start preparing export controls for dual-use artificial intelligence models, which could prevent those models from being used to make biosecurity weapons or skirt U.S. export restrictions on advanced semiconductors, researchers told the agency in comments released this month. But technology companies and industry groups warned the U.S. against overbroad controls, which they said could hurt American AI innovation.

Russia is still able to buy semiconductors for its war effort -- especially from China -- despite Western sanctions and export controls, a semiconductor policy researcher said in a new report this month. Although the restrictions are forcing Russia to pay almost double for some chips and require Russian supply chain managers to constantly find new supply lines, the report said Chinese suppliers are increasingly filling the market gap left by companies in the U.S. and elsewhere who are adhering to the export restrictions.

The State Department will “probably” meet a new deadline to finalize an International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) exemption for Australia and the U.K. under the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) Enhanced Trilateral Security Partnership, a department official said April 23.

The State Department is proposing to increase fees for registration with the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, it said in a notice released April 23. The agency also is proposing changes to the DDTC fee structure, as well as a reorganization of its International Traffic in Arms Regulations on fees and registration.

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The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on April 19 partially dismissed a lawsuit from sanctioned individuals Mir Rahman Rahmani and Hafi Ajmal Rahmani and over two dozen of their companies challenging their sanctions listing for their alleged role in a corruption scheme that swiped millions of dollars from U.S. contracts in Afghanistan (Mir Rahman Rahmani v. Janet Yellen, D.D.C. # 24-00285).

The Senate on April 23 plans to begin considering a House-passed bill that would ban TikTok in the U.S. unless China’s ByteDance divests the popular social media application (see 2404180020).

U.S. defense companies plan to closely monitor the implementation of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) exemption for Australia and the U.K. to ensure it meets its promise of reducing licensing burdens for defense trade, industry representatives told a congressional panel last week.

A now-defunct Thai trading company will pay $20 million to settle charges that it violated Iran sanctions by selling high density polyethylene resin made in Iran to East Asian customers in U.S. dollars, the Office of Foreign Assets Control said April 19 in an enforcement release.