Information collected under the Export Control Reform Act is “presumptively withheld” from Freedom of Information Act requests, the U.S. said July 14 in a case involving the disclosure of documents related to an addition to the Entity List (Husch Blackwell v. Department of Commerce, D.D.C. # 1:24-02733).
Reps. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., and Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., have been appointed to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China for the 119th Congress. The announcement follows several other recent rounds of appointments to the human rights and rule of law panel (see 2507110035, 2507100012 and 2505230057).
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., reintroduced a bill July 15 that would require the executive branch to designate the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South and Central Asia, introduced a bill July 17 that would require the Bureau of Industry and Security to increase the number of export control officers stationed in foreign countries to at least 20, up from 11 today.
Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, a Russian public research university, has launched a two-year master's program focused on mitigating and navigating international sanctions, the Moscow Times reported. The program is described as the first of its kind in Russia, and it aims to train students about how to "identify and assess the risks of sanctions and other measures imposed by supervisory authorities on companies." The program, which is reportedly not funded by the Russian government, costs about 490,000 rubles, or $6,260, annually, with 20 seats reserved for Russian citizens and two for international students.
The State Department is maintaining the status of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba as a foreign terrorist organization and is adding several aliases to both its FTO designation and its Specially Designated Global Terrorist designation, the agency said in notices released this week. The new aliases are: The Resistance Front, TRF, Kashmir Resistance Front and Kashmir Resistance. The designations subject the group to strict sanctions, financial reporting requirements and other restrictions.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned six key leaders and affiliates of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuela-based criminal group that the U.S. labeled a Specially Designated Global Terrorist and Foreign Terrorist Organization in February (see 2502200019 and 2502200019). The designations target Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, also known as Nino Guerrero, the head of Tren de Aragua, along with co-founder Yohan Jose Romero and senior officials Josue Angel Santana Pena, Wilmer Jose Perez Castillo and Felix Anner Castillo Rondon. OFAC also sanctioned Guerrero Flores' wife, Wendy Marbelys Rios Gomez, for her ties to money laundering, terrorism and terrorist financing, the agency said, adding that it believes she has "enriched herself through profits" from Tren de Aragua.
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 19-10 July 17 to approve an FY 2026 Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill that would provide $211 million for the Bureau of Industry and Security, up $20 million or 10.5% from the FY 2025 enacted level but well below the 59% increase the agency was seeking.
A bill to mandate location-tracking mechanisms for exports of advanced chips was panned this week by technology policy experts who said the requirement would be tricky to implement and could push foreign customers to stop trusting American-made semiconductors. They also said Congress should be more focused on boosting the Bureau of Industry and Security budget to help the agency step up enforcement.
Ted Posner, former assistant general counsel for international affairs at the Treasury Department, has joined Baker Botts as a partner in the international trade practice, the firm announced. Posner joined Treasury in October 2020, where he led a group of Treasury attorneys in advising agency officials on issues ranging from investment security to trade (see 2507150010).