President Barack Obama on May 13 issued an executive order to sanction five individuals from the Central African Republic accused of destabilizing the country and fueling violence over recent months. The executive order also provides the Treasury Department with a larger scope to exact additional sanctions against those involved in the crisis. The order blocks the U.S. property and interests of the sanctioned individuals, along with property and interests that come into the U.S. The order also prohibits other dealings with the sanctioned individuals. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control added the individuals to the Specially Designated Nationals List (here), as follows:

The U.S. and Uruguay aimed to sign a Customs Mutual Assistance Agreement on the sidelines of a May 12 meeting between President Barack Obama and Uruguayan President Jose Mujica Cordano, according to a White House Fact Sheet. The agreement provides the legal framework to exchange information and lend assistance related to the prevention, detection, and investigation of customs offenses. The collaboration aims to stem duty evasion, among other customs priorities, according to the White House. The U.S. has signed similar agreements with 68 countries globally. The two sides also held on May 12 a trade and investment council meeting under the bilateral Trade and Investment Framework Agreement. The meeting included work toward enhancement on bilateral trade facilitation, market access for agricultural products, trade in services, intellectual property rights and small and medium business cooperation, said the White House. The officials in attendance praised the recent Uruguayan grant of market access to U.S. poultry and beef, along with U.S. market opening to Uruguayan citrus and deboned lamb. Bilateral trade registered $2.2 billion in total goods trade in 2013, said the White House.

Multiple trade associations recently voiced concerns to National Security Council (NSC) Staff on the evasion of antidumping/countervailing duties (AD/CVD) for wire and wire products, said the American Wire Producers Association (AWPA). The AWPA, the National Association of Manufacturers and American Iron and Steel Institute were among those who met with NSC Staffers Bennett Harman, director of International Trade and Investment and Christine Turner, director of Global Supply Chain Security. The NSC gives advice to the President on a number of domestic and foreign policy issues. Harman "spoke about the convening authority of the White House" and the AWPA believes "it is his intention use this authority to bring the relevant agencies together to work on these solutions to the evasion of AD/CVD orders by transshipment," the trade association said. The AWPA also discussed the problems with CBP's current process of fraud investigations to stop transshipment, it said.

The chance for industry participation within the implementation the International Trade Data System Executive Order will not stop with input from Federal Advisory Committees (FACAs), said Christine Turner, director for global supply chain and trade facilitation at the National Security Council of the President. Turner, who is in charge of overseeing the order's implementation, spoke during a U.S. Chamber of Commerce supply chain conference on May 8. President Barack Obama's February order called for completion of the ITDS by 2016 (see 14021928). FACAs are official groups made up of people outside the government that are meant to be a forum for industry, academia and others to give insight into various policy issues.

The Obama administration will not set "artificial deadlines" in dealing with the conflict in Ukraine, but will continue to monitor the situation and new sanctions remain possible, said White House spokesman Jay Carney during a May 5 press conference. "We’ve always made clear that the tools available to the president allow him and this administration to escalate the costs if activity by Russia aimed at destabilizing Ukraine escalates," said Carney. "And I wouldn’t -- nor am I saying that sanctions are coming on any particular day or will come on any particular day if Russia does this particular action."

South Korea still wants admission into Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, said South Korean President Park Geun-hye during an April 25 press conference with President Barack Obama in Seoul. “We share the view that, followed by FTA between the two countries, TPP will enable both of our countries to expand our cooperation in the future,” said Park, according to a transcript released by the White House. “We will closely coordinate with each other regarding Korea’s participation in TPP.”

President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe failed to reach a compromise in Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during an April 24 summit in Tokyo, according to transcripts of a joint press conference. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and lead Japanese negotiator Akira Amari will continue talks through April 25, said Abe.

The Obama administration will make a preliminary determination in June on the reinstatement of Bangladesh into the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said on April 22. Although the Bangladeshi government is making gradual improvement to labor conditions in the country, progress is still insufficient, according to administration officials in February (see 14021125). Bangladesh provides almost $5 billion worth of goods to the U.S. on an annual basis, largely in the apparel sector. Those goods are not eligible in GSP for any beneficiary. Roughly 99 percent of U.S. imports from Bangladesh do not reap GSP benefits (see 13071613). A series of labor disasters in Bangladesh that claimed upwards of 1,000 lives prompted USTR to rescind Bangladesh’s GSP eligibility in July 2013. The GSP program has been expired since July 31, 2013 (see 14032429).

President Barack Obama should focus on finally bridging the U.S.-Japanese market access gaps during his upcoming summit in Tokyo in order to tout success on the Malaysia leg of his Asia tour and press Trade Promotion Authority upon his return to the U.S., said Catherine Mellor, senior Asia director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in an April 17 post. The U.S. has the opportunity to overcome Japanese agricultural industry resistance to market access concessions for the first time in Japanese trade history, said Mellor. The U.S. and Japan continue to dispute Japanese concessions on rice, beef and pork, wheat, dairy and sugar. The U.S. is reportedly expected to permit Japan to retain tariffs on rice, wheat and likely sugar cane in the TPP, however (see 14041709).

President Barack Obama on April 7 sent to the Senate the nomination of Jane Toshiko Nishida to be an assistant administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of International and Tribal Affairs, where she currently serves as acting assistant administrator. Obama also sent to the Senate the nomination of Sunil Sabharwal to be alternate executive director of the International Monetary Fund for a term of two years.