The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs began an interagency review for a proposed Bureau of Industry and Security rule to control “software” for the operation of “automated nucleic acid assemblers and synthesizers.” BIS will request comments on the proposed export controls. OIRA received the rule July 20.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for July 13-17 in case you missed them.
United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the U.K. was not “strong-armed” by the U.S. into recent actions against Beijing and Hong Kong, saying the U.K. shares many of the same policy goals as the U.S. But Raab did say recent U.S. restrictions against Huawei and Chinese officials have factored into U.K. policymaking.
The Canada government issued the following trade-related notice as of July 20:
Hong Kong’s Trade and Industry Department is urging companies to submit license applications electronically July 20-26, due to government-mandated work-from-home measures to control the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency said July 19. The department said it is suspending “counter services” during this time but can receive documents online or through physical mail.
China will allow imports of fresh mangoes from Cambodia, the country’s General Administration of Customs said in a July 16 notice, according to an unofficial translation. The notice includes information on quarantine and phytosanitary requirements for the imports.
China announced a ban on sheep imports from Portugal after 70 sheep in that country were infected with a disease, scabies, a July 16 notice said, according to an unofficial translation. China said it will destroy all illegally imported sheep products from Portugal. China recently announced bans on certain animal imports from Rwanda (see 2007140009), India (see 2005280018), Australia (see 2005130013) and elsewhere.
A Tennessee resident who is a naturalized U.S. citizen and also an Iranian citizen was sentenced to 46 months in prison for smuggling more than $100,000 worth of items from the U.S. to Iran, the Justice Department said July 16. Aiden Davidson, manager of New Hampshire-based Golden Gate International, pleaded guilty in March (see 2003030055) to being involved in at least 10 exports of containers of industrial goods and equipment to Iran, which included motors, pumps and valves, the Justice Department said. Documents associated with the shipments falsely listed a business in Turkey as the ultimate consignee. Davidson received about $1 million in wire transfers for the exports between 2014 and 2017. He was arrested in September 2018.
The Department of Justice charged a California electronics company, its president and an employee with trying to illegally export chemicals to a Chinese company on the U.S. Entity List. President Tao Jiang, employee Bohr Winn-Shih and the company, Broad Tech System Inc., ordered the chemicals from a Rhode Island company before trying to ship the items to China Electronics Technology Group Corporation 55th Research Institute (aka NEDI) (see 2006030032), the Justice Department said July 20. The shipment would have violated the Export Control Reform Act.
House Ways and Means Committee ranking member Kevin Brady, R-Texas, one of the four players directing the shape of a USMCA technical corrections bill, said that the “language was a little different than the intent” when it came to the treatment of foreign-trade zones in USMCA's implementing bill. Brady and the leaders of the Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees see getting a technical corrections bill passed as “a high priority,” he said in a recent interview.