The U.S. and law firm Husch Blackwell again swapped briefs June 13 in the firm’s Freedom of Information Act dispute. Husch Blackwell said the government, which provided a list of more than 100 disclosed and undisclosed documents related to the firm’s FOIA request regarding an Entity List listing when it filed for summary judgment (see 2505300055), still wasn’t making clear which documents were actually responsive to the request (Husch Blackwell v. Department of Commerce, D.D.C. # 1:24-02733).
The Senate confirmed Paul Dabbar (see 2505140066) to be deputy commerce secretary in a vote June 25, 56-40. Three Democrats and Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who caucuses with the Democrats, supported his nomination. The role is essentially the chief of operations for the agency.
The House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee chairman, 44 other House Republicans and Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., urged the U.S. trade representative, agriculture secretary, commerce secretary and treasury secretary to get trade partners to end digital services taxes, improve import quotas and lower tariffs in these quick negotiations, all issues that they said "we cannot delay addressing."
Paulo Figueiredo, a Brazilian journalist living in Florida, urged the U.S. June 24 to impose Global Magnitsky Act sanctions on Brazilian judge and “de facto dictator” Alexandre de Moraes for persecuting political opponents and journalists.
The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau has been removed from the Automated Export System's Trade Interface Requirements for export filings, according to a June 25 CBP cargo systems message. The bureau has "inactivated its Partner Government Agency (PGA) Export Message Set" as part of a "deregulatory action," CBP said. "References for TTB have been removed from Appendices Q and X of the Automated Export System Trade Interface Requirement (AESTIR). Previously, the submission of TTB PGA export message set had been voluntary."
The intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force recently updated its list of jurisdictions with “deficiencies” in combating terrorism financing, weapons proliferation and other sanctions-related issues, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said June 23. FATF added the British Virgin Islands and Bolivia to its list of "Jurisdictions Under Increased Monitoring" and removed Croatia, Mali and Tanzania from that list. FATF’s list of "High-Risk Jurisdictions Subject to a Call for Action" remains the same, with Iran, North Korea and Myanmar.
Chinese purchases of Iranian oil will continue to be subject to U.S. sanctions despite President Donald Trump saying June 24 that China can now buy Iranian oil (see 2506240049), a senior White House official said.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control is considering adding a new online portal for sanctioned people and parties to ask to be removed from the agency's Specially Designated Nationals List and other OFAC restricted party lists.
An Israeli telecommunications and cybersecurity technology company told the Bureau of Industry and Security that it may have violated export controls against Russia and Belarus.
Enacting two pending export control bills into law could help keep U.S. AI technology out of China’s hands, an advocacy group representative told the House Select Committee on China June 25.