US withdrawal stalls the next AI-chip rule, not existing controls

• OIRA records show that Commerce withdrew the unpublished “AI Action Plan Implementation” draft on 13 March 2026 after submitting it on 26 February.
• The record gives no reason and no publication date; the withdrawal therefore did not itself create, amend or repeal a public legal requirement.
• Separate advanced-computing licence rules and end-user controls remained in force while the administration reconsidered the replacement framework.

An interagency draft left review, not the rulebook

The decisive public record is narrow. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs says the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security submitted an action titled “AI Action Plan Implementation” on 26 February 2026. OIRA concluded its review on 13 March with the action marked “Withdrawn”. The publication-date field is blank, and the page supplies no explanation.

That sequence matters. A draft in executive review is not a published final rule. Because this one never reached the Federal Register, the 13 March withdrawal did not by itself impose a new threshold, grant an exemption or cancel an existing licence. It removed one proposed route to the administration’s next framework.

The policy gap began in 2025

The withdrawn draft sat inside an unfinished transition. In January 2025, BIS published the Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion, 90 FR 4544. It expanded worldwide licensing for advanced computing chips, created country and data-centre pathways and added controls on certain closed-model weights. The rule was effective on 13 January, with major compliance requirements scheduled for 15 May.

On 13 May 2025, Commerce told enforcement officials not to enforce the new AI Diffusion requirements. It said a regulation would formally rescind the framework and that a simpler replacement would follow. That announcement did not say every earlier chip control had disappeared. It paired non-enforcement of the new framework with new guidance on Chinese chips, diversion and use of US chips to train Chinese models.

The March 2026 draft was therefore best understood as part of the promised replacement process. Its withdrawal prolonged the gap between rejecting the 2025 architecture and publishing a durable successor.

Leaked conditions were proposals, not law

Reuters reported that a document it saw considered linking exports of 200,000 chips or more to investment in US data centres or government security guarantees. The report also said the draft had circulated for agency feedback and that Commerce offered no reason for the pullback.

Those details illuminate the policy debate, but they have a strict evidentiary limit. The document was not published, its wording cannot be checked against an official rule text, and the 200,000-chip figure never became a public legal threshold through this action. Companies should not describe it as a current entitlement or prohibition.

Existing controls continued on separate tracks

Other parts of the Export Administration Regulations remained operational. A separate final rule published in January 2026 changed the review policy for specified advanced chips bound for China and Macau from a presumption of denial to case-by-case review, subject to supply, capacity, customer-security and US testing conditions. That was a published rule; the March withdrawal did not revoke it.

BIS made the boundary still clearer on 31 May 2026. Its guidance said licence requirements introduced in 2023 continued to apply to advanced-computing items for entities headquartered in Country Group D:5 or Macau, including when those entities were located elsewhere. Non-enforcement of the AI Diffusion Rule’s new requirements did not displace that pre-existing control.

The White House AI Action Plan also called for location verification, stronger diversion monitoring and allied alignment. The policy direction remained enforcement-oriented even while the architecture for broader global access was being rewritten.

The next proof point is a published instrument

The Unified Agenda still describes RIN 0694-AJ90 as a final-rule project to secure advanced-AI-chip exports and formally rescind the 2025 framework, with the work merged into a related RIN. Its target date is planning information, not evidence that a final action exists.

Operators should watch the Federal Register, current EAR text, BIS licensing guidance and any new OIRA record. Commercial effects should be measured through actual licence decisions, shipment conditions and customer disclosures—not inferred from a withdrawn draft. The 13 March action changed the policy timetable. It did not clear the export-control checkpoint.