The U.S. is postponing the Bureau of Industry and Security's 50% rule for one year in exchange for Beijing delaying its rare earth export controls for one year, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an Oct. 30 interview with Fox Business. "We are going to be suspending [the BIS 50% rule] for a year in return for the suspension on the rare earth licensing regime," he said.
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It seems unlikely that the Bureau of Industry and Security could withdraw its new 50% rule either due to industry pushback or as part of trade negotiations with China, said Matt Axelrod, the former BIS export enforcement chief.
The Trump administration said it has secured, or soon will secure, commitments from Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam to cooperate on export controls, investment restrictions and other economic-security-related trade measures.
A former State Department analyst on export control and sanctions evasion under President Joe Biden and a former National Security Council director for China under President George W. Bush agreed that the Bureau of Industry and Security's 50% rule was not fully thought through before its announcement.
The European Automobile Manufacturers Association said it's "deeply concerned" about potential disruptions to European vehicle manufacturing stemming from a trade dispute over Chinese-owned Dutch semiconductor firm Nexperia, especially "if the interruption of Nexperia chips supplies cannot be immediately resolved."
Open-source intelligence software firm WireScreen said it has identified more than 20,000 Chinese entities that are subject to U.S. export restrictions as a result of the Bureau of Industry and Security's 50% rule, released last month (see 2510030041 and 2509290017).
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Oct. 17 rejected both the government’s and law firm Husch Blackwell’s motions for judgment in a Freedom of Information Act dispute involving the Entity List. It gave the Commerce Department time to provide adequate justifications for its decisions to withhold certain information but said the ones it already provided weren’t enough (Husch Blackwell v. Department of Commerce, D.D.C. # 24-2733.
China’s recently issued rare earth export controls were likely a response to the Commerce Department’s 50% rule for the Entity List and highlighted the ongoing communication issues between the two sides, said David Sacks, the White House’s AI policy adviser.
U.S. export controls on design technology for advanced computing chips have spurred China to speed up pursuing its own capabilities, according to a new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.