The State Department approved a potential $675 million military sale to South Korea, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said April 10. The sale includes support and services for its F-35 aircraft, engines and weapons. The principal contractors are Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney.

The State Department approved a potential $40.55 million military sale to the Netherlands, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said April 10. The sale includes 199 “Excalibur Increment IB M982Al tactical projectiles” and other equipment. The prime contractor is Raytheon.

The Export-Import Bank of the United States approved a resolution to temporarily cease financing for exports of personal protective equipment, EXIM said in an April 14 press release. Financing will no longer be available through Sept. 30 for certain “critically needed” medical supplies and equipment, such as masks, gloves, face shields and other items identified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency last week (see 2004080018). EXIM said it will contact insured exporters of medical equipment and make sure their existing agreements only cover exports that “reflect the new EXIM policy,” the bank said. Financing for medical equipment represents “a relatively small portion of EXIM’s overall financing portfolio,” at less than 1%, the bank said.

The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security this week postponed several upcoming export compliance seminars due to the COVID-19 pandemic response and announced an online-only export control conference for May. The online conference, which will run May 19-22, will cover a range of export compliance topics, BIS said, including the scope of the Export Administration Regulations, classifying items for export, using license exceptions, the de minimis and direct product rules, export enforcement and more. The conference will be hosted by “BIS specialists” during a daily three-hour session from 9 a.m. to noon. The conference will also include a question-and-answer session. Note that the conference is on Pacific Daylight Time.

The Drug Enforcement Administration is finalizing controls on benzylfentanyl and 4-anilinopiperidine and their amides, carbamates and salts as list I chemicals under the Controlled Substances Act. The two chemicals are used in the manufacture of fentanyl, DEA said. DEA is not setting a threshold for domestic and international transactions for these chemicals, so all transactions of chemical mixtures containing benzylfentanyl or 4-anilinopiperidine will be regulated at any concentration and will be subject to control under the CSA, the agency said. The final rule takes effect May 15.

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for April 6-10 in case you missed them.

Although the U.S. provides broad exemptions for humanitarian exports to Iran, the exemptions continue to be a source of confusion for industry, which is hindering humanitarian trade with Iran, said Katherine Bauer, a former senior policy adviser for Iran at the Treasury Department. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control may issue guidance to clarify the exemptions, Bauer said, but the Trump administration is unlikely to make any major changes to its Iranian sanctions regulations.

Container volumes through the Port of Los Angeles fell 30.9% year-on-year in March, marking the lowest amount of cargo moving through the port in a month since February 2009, said the Port of Los Angeles in a recent news release. The deep decline comes as a result not only of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, said Gene Seroka, executive director of the port. “With U.S. retailers and cargo owners scaling back orders, volumes are soft even though factories in China are beginning to produce more. Amidst this public health crisis, there will be uncertain months ahead in the global supply chain,” Seroka said. Imports for the month decreased by 25.9% compared with March 2019, and exports by 23.8%. Empty containers declined by 44.5%, the release said.

The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of April 13 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):

The Border Trade Alliance is urging Mexico to align its guidelines on essential industries allowed to stay open during the COVID-19 pandemic with similar directives from the U.S. and Canada. In an April 9 letter to Mexican Health Minister Jorge Alcocer Varela, the trade group voiced concern that “a lack of clarity and alignment over what private sector industries and services are deemed by Mexico as ‘essential’ is proving increasing[ly] problematic for firms whose manufacturing operations and supply chains are partially or wholly dependent on output from Mexico. Discrepancies between countries in the identification of essential services and industries are likely to cause increased disruptions to cross-border supply chains at a time when ensuring and preserving efficient cross-border trade and commerce is more important than ever,” it said. Mexico should adopt “guidelines aligned to the extent possible with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security guidelines for critical infrastructure industries and the newly issued federal guidelines from the Canadian federal government,” the letter said.