The Trump administration ignored warnings from career staff at the Commerce Department when it granted the United Arab Emirates sweeping access to advanced American semiconductors and other technology, according to three former officials with knowledge of the reports and two other people familiar with the matter.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security announced on July 10 that it was loosening restrictions on sensitive tech exports to the UAE, a key ally in the war in the Middle East whose leaders pledged last year to invest more than $1 trillion in the U.S. over the coming decade. According to one of the people familiar and two former officials, the announcement surprised staff inside the agency, which is tasked with securing American tech from adversaries and criminals. It also ran directly against recommendations staffers submitted to senior Trump administration officials at the department last year.
The five people said agency staff compiled and circulated multiple internal reports and memos last fall documenting security risks tied to G42, the UAE’s state-backed AI giant, and its affiliated companies. In the assessments, which have not been previously reported, staff warned that expanding the companies’ access to U.S. technology — such as cutting-edge processors from companies like Nvidia, as well as the powerful AI models built with them — made it more likely the technology would get into the hands of adversaries. In particular, they flagged concerns about China’s influence in the Emirates.
“It is an open secret that the UAE is the primary diversion point for sensitive U.S. technologies in the Middle East — by orders of magnitude,” said one of the people familiar, who like others in this story was granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
