The U.S. Commerce Department’s efforts to block China and Russia’s access to advanced U.S.-made computer chips have been “inadequate” and will need more funding to curb their ability to produce advanced weapons, according to a report published Wednesday by a Senate permanent subcommittee. Research.
The Biden administration imposed export controls to limit China and Russia’s ability to access U.S.-made chips after Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago.
The agency’s Bureau of Industry and Security, according to the report, lacks the resources to enforce export controls and has relied heavily on U.S. chipmakers voluntarily complying with the rules.
But the push comes as commerce tightens its export control enforcement Trump administration It said it was seeking to dramatically reduce the size and scope of the federal government.
President-elect Donald Trump has tapped entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency” to dismantle parts of the federal government.
BIS’s budget, about $191 million, has remained essentially flat since 2010 when adjusted for inflation.
“While BIS’s budget has been stagnant for a decade, the bureau works diligently around the clock to fulfill its mission and protect U.S. national security,” Commerce Department spokesman Charlie Andrews said in a statement in response to the report.
Andrews added that with “necessary resources from Congress,” the agency “will be better equipped to address the challenges facing our evolving national security environment.”
In a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Wednesday, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the subcommittee chairman, pointed to news reports that the Russian military continues to receive components from Texas Instruments through front companies in Hong Kong. They are failing as an effective tool.
In a statement, Blumenthal called for “immediate action on trade and companies that allow American-made semiconductors to power Russian weapons and Chinese ambitions.” Texas Instruments said it would use its chips in Russian military equipment and illegally divert its products to Russia.
“It is our policy to comply with export control laws, and any shipment of TI chips to Russia is illegal and unauthorized,” the company said in a statement. “If we find evidence that indicates product diversion, we investigate and take action.”
This is not just a Texas instrument issue. The subcommittee published a report in September that found total exports from the four major U.S. advanced chip makers to Armenia and Georgia nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022.
Both of those countries are home to companies known to help Russia acquire advanced U.S.-made chips despite export controls.
Meanwhile, China has created “vast, barely disguised smuggling networks that enable it to keep up with American technology,” the subcommittee’s report emphasized.
Washington has been gradually expanding the number of companies affected by such export controls in China President Joe Biden’s administration It has encouraged investment and expansion of chip manufacturing in the US.
But Chinese companies have found ways to evade export controls due to a lack of Chinese subject matter experts and Chinese speakers assigned to commercial export control enforcement.
The agency’s current budget limits the number of international end-use inspections, or physical verification of foreign distributors or companies receiving US-made chips that are the end users of the products. Currently, Commerce has only 11 export control authorities spread across the globe to conduct such checks, the report said.
The committee made several recommendations in its report, including requiring Congress to allocate more money to hire more staff to enforce export controls, impose larger fines on companies that violate the controls, and require periodic reviews of advanced chip companies’ export control plans by outside organizations.
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