Denmark is considering new legislation that could punish EU sanctions violators by sentencing them to up to eight years in prison, an uptick from the current maximum four-month sentence, the country’s Ministry of Justice said this week. And if there are "aggravating circumstances," the ministry said, certain offenders could face up to eight years, according to an unofficial translation.
U.S. ambassador to Japan nominee George Glass said March 13 that he would seek to ensure Japan follows through on its commitment to ramp up its purchase of U.S. liquefied natural gas to reduce its trade deficit with the U.S. and its reliance on Russia.
The State Department released a notice March 13 that says all U.S. agency “efforts” to “control … the transfer of goods, services, data, technology, and other items across the borders of the United States” are a “foreign affairs function” exempt from Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking and hearing requirements under 5 U.S.C. 553 and 554. When asked to clarify, a State Department spokesperson said: "The determination speaks for itself."
Two Democrats and two Republicans in the Senate asked the administration to press Canada on changing how it administers tariff rate quotas for U.S. dairy exports as it approaches a renegotiation.
Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, reintroduced a bill March 10 aimed at giving Congress more oversight over administration actions to ease sanctions on Iran.
The U.N. Security Council on March 11 updated the entries for 12 people on its ISIL (Da’esh) and al-Qaida sanctions list. The council updated some entries to indicate that they may have died, and it updated identifying information for the others.
The U.S. this week sanctioned Iranian Minister of Petroleum Mohsen Paknejad, along with several entities and ships helping to move Iranian oil, including to China.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies this month published English translations of recently updated or proposed semiconductor-related export controls issued by the Netherlands and Japan. The new Dutch regulations (see 2501150057) “specify which types of equipment now require a license to be legally exported from the Netherlands, based on specific technology usage or performance thresholds,” CSIS said, while the Japanese document includes proposed rules for “tighter restrictions on chip testing and measurement equipment, computer-aided design software, materials, and semiconductors.”
The Senate voted 54-45 late March 13 to confirm Washington trade lawyer Jeffrey Kessler to be undersecretary of commerce for industry and security. The vote came a week after the Senate Banking Committee approved Kessler’s nomination along party lines (see 2503060043). Kessler has said he would conduct a host of reviews at the Bureau of Industry and Security, including whether the agency needs more statutory authorities to do its job (see 2503060043).
It’s possible that the Trump administration offers Russia some “symbolic” sanctions relief as part of peace negotiations with Ukraine, but the broader lifting of sanctions on Russia’s oil sector is more unlikely, a former U.S. sanctions official said this week.