The trade staff of the House Ways and Means Committee told Democrats who are anxious for a ratification vote on the new NAFTA that the rewrite "will be ready for a vote as soon as it is ready; no sooner, and also no later," in a memo that was structured as an imagined dialogue between a member who wants a vote and the committee chairman, who has a big say on when that vote happens.
China denies President Donald Trump's allegations their regime is dragging its feet in the U.S. trade talks in hopes of winning a more favorable deal with a new Democratic administration in 2021. “China's position, attitude and practice on the trade issue with the U.S. is consistent,” a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson said Sept. 11, according to a transcript in English of a press conference in China, released by the department. “We never wanted a trade war. We always hope to reach a mutually acceptable win-win solution through equal-footed and respectful consultation.” There’s “a lot of rational" voices within the U.S. “hoping for the early conclusion of an agreement to prevent further escalation of the trade friction,” and the Trump administration “should heed the call,” she said. Trump is sure the Chinese “would love to be dealing with a new administration so they could continue their practice of ‘ripoff USA’” to the tune of $600 billion a year, he tweeted Sept. 3.
The International Standards Organization country code for Burma is now MM in the Automated Export System, the Census Bureau said in an email. Previously, the country code was BU. The country name will remain as Burma, it said.
The State Department issued a notice correcting the effective date of sanctions announced in July against a Chinese state-owned oil company and its director. The sanctions, imposed against Zhuhai Zhenrong and director Youmin Li, took effect July 22, changing the original effective date of Sept. 16, the State Department said. The company was sanctioned for buying oil from Iran (see 1908150040).
The State Department sanctioned two Russian officials for human rights violations, the agency said in a Sept. 10 press release. The officials, Vladimir Petrovich Yermolayev, the head of the Investigative Committee in Surgut, Russia, and Stepan Vladimirovich Tkach, a senior investigator for the committee, were involved in the torture of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the city, the press release said.
President Donald Trump discussed removing sanctions on Iran to help schedule a meeting with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani later this month, Bloomberg reported Sept. 11. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was in favor of the move as a way to restart negotiations with Iran, the report said, but then-National Security Adviser John Bolton argued against it. Bolton resigned one day later.
Iran violated international sanctions by reneging on promises to Britain that it would not use a previously seized oil tanker to deliver oil to Syria, the United Kingdom said in a Sept. 10 press release. The U.K. said it is “now clear that Iran has breached these assurances” and shipped the oil to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime.
China released its first batch of tariff exemptions for U.S. goods, which include exemptions for 16 items, according to an unofficial translation of a Ministry of Finance press release. The goods will be excluded from China’s first round of retaliatory tariffs in response to U.S. Section 301 tariffs. The exemptions will take effect Sept. 17 and last until Sept. 16, 2020, China said, adding that it plans to publish more exemptions in “due course.”
A bipartisan group of senators is concerned that U.S. export controls are not strict enough to stop sensitive technologies from being sent to China and asked the administration to review the controls. In a Sept. 10 letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, four senators suggested that China may be using Hong Kong to “steal or otherwise acquire” critical technologies such as artificial intelligence, mass surveillance tools and advanced robotics.
The Commerce Department asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by FedEx that said Commerce’s export controls are unconstitutional and impossible to comply with, according to a motion filed Sept. 10. Commerce raised several issues with FedEx’s suit (see 1906250030), saying the company did not “allege a plausible violation” of the Export Control Reform Act, and argued that FedEx failed to provide evidence for many of its points. “Even if these standards were judicially enforceable, FedEx’s allegations are conclusory,” Commerce said.