The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) denied (here) export privileges for 10 years from the date of conviction for Ernest Chornoletskyy. Chornoletskyy was convicted Aug. 21, 2013 for conspiring to willfully export from the U.S. to Belarus export-controlled items, including L3 x 200xp Handheld Thermal Imaging Cameras, without the require Commerce authorization, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Chornoletskyy is now listed on the State Department Debarred List. BIS also denied (here) export privileges for five years from the date of conviction for Mostafa Saberi Tehrani. Tehrani was convicted on Sept. 13, 2013 of knowingly and willfully exporting from the U.S. to Iran a pump seal without the required Treasury Department authorization, in violation of International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Exporters should remember to fill out the Automated Export System AESDirect conditional data fields (marked in blue) when filing because it is rare that an AES record contains only required data fields (marked in red). In most cases at least one conditional field is required. Most of the conditional fields are located in the Shipment Information and Add Commodity Line sections in AESDirect and AESPcLink, the Census Bureau said in a March 19 blog post. The following are the most common conditional fields in the two sections:

The Obama administration continues to negotiate Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agricultural access for Japanese and Canadian markets, but administration trade officials have made “great progress” in eliminating Vietnamese and Malaysia agricultural tariffs that range from 20-50 percent, said U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a joint radio broadcast disseminated to rural stations throughout the country on March 7. The TPP agreement can help build on Fiscal Year 2013 record exports for U.S. agriculture (here), said Vilsack, according to a USTR release.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) settled a potential civil liability case with Ubiquiti Networks for alleged violations of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations committed from 2008 to 2011, said OFAC. Ubiquiti allegedly engaged in the export, reexport and facilitation of export with distributors, located in the United Arab Emirates and Greece, that then supplied products, such as broadband wireless connectivity and related items, to Iran. Ubiquiti agreed to pay $504,225 in the settlement for violations that OFAC says were not voluntarily disclosed but constitute a non-egregious case.

The Census Bureau scheduled an Automated Export System (AES) shut down from March 22 at 11:00 p.m. EDT to March 23 at 3:00 a.m. EDT for maintenance, Census said on March 7. The AESDirect website will still be available, but shipments will remain in a queue until CBP completes the scheduled maintenance. Census encourages exporters to file prior to these outages. The AES Downtime Policy will be in effect during the outage. Should exporters use the Downtime Policy, contact the port of intended export. In lieu of the AES Proof of Filing citation, exporters should use the AES Downtime citation, consisting of the phrase AESDOWN, and the individual company's Filer ID, followed by the date.

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security denied export privileges to Aliaksandr Stashynski on March 4. Stashynski was convicted in February of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act at a Pennsylvania district court. BIS said Stashynski conspired and agreed to willfully export from the U.S. to Belarus export-controlled items, including L-3 x 200xp Handheld Thermal Imaging Cameras, without the required authorization. Stashynski was indicted along with a number of other individuals, according to the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (see 13022007). BIS is denying Stashynski export privileges for items controlled by the Export Administration Regulations until 2023.

The final rule for transfer of items from U.S. Munitions List (USML) Category XV (Spacecraft Systems and Associated Equipment) to the Commerce Control List (CCL), as part of Export Control Reform (ECR), has undergone interagency clearance and will be published following completion of the congressional notification process, said Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration Kevin Wolf on March 4. Category XI (Military Electronic Equipment and Related Items) has not cleared the interagency process and is being informally floated throughout the Obama Administration, including the Office of Management and Budget, said Wolf.

The inclusion of “yarn forward” rules of origin in U.S. trade policy with partners is generating significant foreign investment in U.S. domestic textile manufacturing, said the National Council of Textile Organizations in a March 5 release. “The Yarn-Forward rule has helped the U.S. textile industry become the third largest exporter of textile products in the world. U.S. exports of all textile products were nearly $17.9 billion in 2013,” said the release. “Over the past 10 years, U.S. textile exports have grown dramatically, from $12.7 billion in 2003 to $17.9 billion in 2013, a 40.6% increase over that period.” Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., along with Reps. Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H., and Ann McLane Kuster, D-N.H. recently urged U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker to implement a strict “yarn forward” in Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations (see 14030324).

The pending Trans-Pacific Partnership represents an important opportunity to increase U.S.-Malaysia bilateral ties, building off recent Malaysian progress in economic liberalization, said U.S. Ambassador to the World Trade Organization, Michael Punke, at the WTO Trade Policy Review of Malaysia. The country has over recent years strengthened intellectual property rights protection and enforcement, but significant work remains to be done, said Punke. Pirated and counterfeit products continue to be commonly available, said Punke. Malaysia also continues to impose unfair tariff and non-tariff barriers on U.S. imports, said Punke.

The strengthening Brazilian real is limiting exports from the country and encouraging government action to restore trade balance, said a Brazilian trade expert in an Integration Point Feb. 26 webinar on trade in Brazil. The shifting balance is leading the Brazilian government to begin to ramp up enforcement of special customs regimes and implement forced localization barriers, said Flavio Nicoletti Siqueira, Business Development and Trade Advisory Manager for Sandler & Travis Trade Advisory Services Brazil.