The U.S. is actively seeking to impose more sanctions on Venezuela and the Nicolas Maduro-led regime, a top State Department official said during a Jan. 6 press conference. “We are looking at additional sanctions, personal sanctions, economic sanctions that we think will bring more pressure yet on the regime,” said Elliott Abrams, the U.S.’s special representative for Venezuela. That effort involves urging Venezuela’s neighbors to pressure the country with their own sanctions, Abrams said. Abrams’s comments have been echoed by other Trump administration officials, who have said the Venezuela program is one of its most active sanctions regimes and expect sanctions to continue (see 1911190028). Abrams has said he feels no pressure from U.S. companies to lift Venezuela sanctions (see 1912200049).

The United Nations Security Council Committee removed 15 Iraq-related entities from its sanctions list, the committee said in a Jan. 2 notice. The entities include state-operated chemical, steel, agricultural and engineering entities.

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control amended a Venezuela-related general license to extend the authorization period for certain activities with Globovision Tele C.A. or Globovision Tele CA, Corp., OFAC said in a Jan. 7 notice. The two entities are controlled by Gustavo Adolfo Perdomo Rosales and Raul Antonio Gorrin Belisario, who were sanctioned by OFAC in January 2019. General License No. 6A, which replaces General License No. 6, authorizes certain activities with the two entities or any entities they own by 50 percent or more until Jan. 21. The general license was previously scheduled to expire Jan. 8.

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for Dec. 30 - Jan. 3 in case you missed them.

The Senate Finance Committee has recommended the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement come up for a vote in the Senate as a whole, voting 25-3 Jan. 7 to advance the deal. Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told reporters that the USMCA implementing bill also has to get buy-in from the Budget, Environment and Commerce committees, though they don't have to hold mark-up hearings, as the Finance Committee did. He predicted that if the articles of impeachment aren't sent over to the Senate yet, “by next week, for sure,” there would be a floor vote, but if the articles arrive, he said, it could be the end of January before a vote.

The Directorate of Defense Trade Controls issued a series of frequently asked questions on Jan. 6 as part of guidance related to U.S. people exporting defense services abroad. The guidance clarifies questions related to registration and authorization requirements and details the process for obtaining authorization.

Deputy U.S. Trade Representative C.J. Mahoney, who as the deputy in charge of the Western Hemisphere has done a lot of the legwork on the NAFTA replacement, has been nominated to be legal adviser at the State Department.

The United Kingdom's Department for International Trade updated its guidance for import controls with a Jan. 3 notice on the European Union’s prior surveillance import licensing arrangements. The notice removed two tariff codes and added five codes “covering imports into free circulation within the EU of aluminum and steel products,” the notice said. All “unused valid import” licenses for a removed tariff code need to be replaced with a new import license, the notice said.

The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of Jan. 6 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):

Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade recently launched websites to tackle e-commerce concerns related to illegal transactions, “unsatisfactory” purchase disputes and reporting on “general e-commerce problems,” according to a Jan. 6 Hong Kong Trade Development Council report. The release of the websites is part of a larger effort by Vietnam to target counterfeit trade online and intellectual property violations, the report said. The websites are also designed to improve information sharing between Vietnamese government agencies for enforcement, HKTDC said.