Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., urged the Commerce Department this week to decline to give the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to confidential business data, including information disclosed in export license applications filed with the Bureau of Industry and Security.
A new White House memo on President Donald Trump’s “America-first investment policy” previews efforts to expand both inbound and outbound foreign investment restrictions, tamp down on the use of mitigation agreements, fast-track investment deals from certain allies and more.
Howard Lutnick was formally sworn in as commerce secretary during a White House ceremony Feb. 21. The Senate confirmed Lutnick for the position Feb. 18 (see 2502190014).
Danny Meza, a former senior adviser with the Bureau of Industry and Security and the State Department, has joined the nonprofit Global Business Alliance as its director of trade policy, GBA’s president announced on LinkedIn. Meza most recently was a senior policy adviser to the House of Representatives.
John Eisenberg, former legal adviser to the National Security Council who served during the first Trump administration, is President Donald Trump's pick to lead DOJ’s National Security Division, DOJ announced last week. Eisenberg also previously held several roles within DOJ, including in the office of the deputy attorney general. If confirmed, Eisenberg will oversee the division that prosecutes various export control, sanctions, foreign investment and other national security-related violations.
The World Trade Organization's published agenda for the Dispute Settlement Body's Feb. 24 meeting includes a request from China to establish a panel in its dispute against Turkey's measures on electric vehicles and other types of vehicles from China.
A federal court in Kentucky found that Arms Export Control Act and International Traffic in Arms Regulations licensing requirements for technical data don't violate the First Amendment as a restriction on free speech. Judge David Hale of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky said the licensing requirements "advance important government interests unrelated to the suppression of free speech" and don't burden "substantially more speech than necessary to further those interests" (United States v. Pascoe, W.D. Ky. # 3:22-88).
Gal Haimovich, an Israeli national and owner of a freight forwarding company, was sentenced last week to two years in prison and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty in September as part of a scheme to illegally ship aircraft parts and avionics from U.S. manufacturers and suppliers to Russia (see 2409110018). DOJ said Haimovich -- who admitted to deceiving U.S. companies about the destination of the goods, some of which were sent to a sanctioned Russian airline Siberian Airlines (see 2412090012 -- also forfeited $2,024,435.44 to the U.S. government.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, welcomed the Trump administration’s designation of eight Latin America-based criminal groups as foreign terrorists. “I support the Trump Administration's efforts to use every tool at its disposal to combat the scourge of illicit narcotics & the cartels profiting from the damage they’re doing to Idaho communities,” Risch tweeted Feb. 20, the same day the State Department announced the designations (see 2502190011).
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., plans to reintroduce a bill that would require the administration to develop a strategy to use sanctions and other tools to protect civilians from Sudan’s civil war, a spokesperson said Feb. 21.