The European Commission will delay its first wave of retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. from April 1 until mid-April, commission spokesperson Olof Gill said in a statement March 20. Gill said the tariffs were delayed to "align the timing" of the EU's two sets of retaliatory actions announced last month (see 2503120042).

The U.K.'s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation fined the Russian subsidiary of British law firm Herbert Smith Freehills about $600,000 for violating U.K. sanctions on Russia. The firm was penalized for six payments it made worth over $5 million to sanctioned Russian banks Alfa-Bank JSC, PJSC Sovcombank and PJSC Sberbank.

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky declared a mistrial in a case against defense contractor Quadrant Magnetics for violating export controls after the government sent the company thousands of pages of documents relevant to the case immediately prior to and during the company's trial (United States v. Quadrant Magnetics, W.D. Ky. # 3:22-00088).

House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar, R-Mich., said March 19 that a deal that allows ByteDance to retain control of TikTok would violate a U.S. law requiring the Chinese company to sell the popular social media application.

Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, announced March 18 that she has introduced a bill that would sanction Chinese police departments that operate or try to operate in the U.S. The Expel Illegal Chinese Police Act was referred to the House Foreign Affairs and Judiciary committees. The legislation is a companion to a bill Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., reintroduced in January (see 2501100032).

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met with U.K. Secretary of State for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds and the British prime minister's Special Adviser on Business and Investment Varun Chandra on March 18 to discuss a potential bilateral trade deal, the Commerce Department announced. The meeting follows U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer's visit to the White House last month. Lutnick expressed the Trump administration's desire for a trade deal, and Commerce said efforts to develop it "will continue to unfold over the coming days and weeks."

The U.K. amended the sanctions listing of Red Box Energy Services under its Russia sanctions regime on March 20. The entity's listing now says the company "has been involved" in the Russian energy sector instead of saying it "is involved" in the sector.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned an oil refinery and its CEO for buying and refining hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian crude oil, including from vessels linked to the Yemen-based Houthis.

It’s still unclear how the Trump administration will approach the Bureau of Industry and Security's artificial intelligence diffusion rule or any of the agency’s recently published proposed or interim final rules that haven’t yet taken effect, a Commerce Department official said.

The Bureau of Industry and Security has begun to experience a significant decline in export license applications for Australia and the U.K. as a result of a rule it issued last year to reduce defense-related licensing requirements for those countries, a Commerce Department official said March 19.