Congress last year passed a law pushed by the White House ordering Commerce to update its export-control regime to include “emerging” and “foundational” technologies.
The discussions over the changes are ongoing and the administration will likely publish new regulations on emerging technologies in the summer. It’ll define “foundational” technologies later this year.
The debate over how sweeping export restrictions should be has always been a tug of war between a Commerce Department in charge of promoting exports and the more hawkish Defense Department. But people familiar with internal deliberations said that balance has shifted with control of the process increasingly in the hands of hardline Trump administration officials pushing for stringent controls.
A Commerce spokeswoman declined to address specific questions about the export control review but said the department was working with U.S. businesses, academia and other agencies.
Smart Dust
The U.S.’s export control system has for years targeted things like fissile material, communications and cybersecurity equipment, lasers, and even space vehicles. The 14 categories of emerging technologies listed in a proposed Commerce Department rule last November included areas like biotechnology, advanced surveillance systems, and robotics including specific things like “smart dust,” speck-sized networked sensors.
According to a person briefed on the discussions, the administration has since narrowed its focus to three emerging technologies: artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and sensing advances and technologies like 3D printing.
But the process has also led to fractures within the Commerce Department and battles between career staff and political appointees, according to people familiar with the deliberations. Several officials considered more moderate have either recently left the agency or been accused of foot-dragging and sidelined in the discussions. The political appointees who have seized control of the process are pushing for the new restrictions to be implemented quickly.
Bill Reinsch, who oversaw the U.S. export-control regime in the Clinton administration, said striking the right balance to protect national security while not stifling innovation is a hard task.
“It’s always tricky to get export controls right. Too lax and critical technologies end up in the hands of our adversaries. Too strict and we limit our high tech companies’ ability to grow and further innovate, and we encourage others to develop their own capabilities in critical sectors,” he said.
The actions against Huawei illustrate the power of the U.S. export-control regime. They also illustrate the dilemma facing policymakers, Reinsch said. Huawei has long been the target of concerns from the U.S. intelligence community and was placed on the so-called “entity list’’ for allegedly violating U.S. export controls by selling restricted components to Iran.