The Trump administration has proposed to slap new export controls on geospatial imagery software, as it rolled out the first in a series of measures to restrict sales of emerging technologies and artificial intelligence products to countries including China.

The US commerce department announced the step in a notice in the US Federal Register notice, saying the items needed to be subject to the trade restrictions because they offered the US a “significant military or intelligence advantage”. The US also said a multilateral regime should be set up to control sales of the software.

The move by the Trump administration follows a 2018 law designed to tighten export controls on emerging technologies mainly to prevent China and other US strategic adversaries from gaining control of the most cutting-edge technologies.