The Census Bureau emailed tips on how to address the most frequent messages generated this month in the Automated Export System.

A European Parliament report published this month analyzes how the EU is approaching lifting sanctions against Syria after the December overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime.

The Australian Sanctions Office will be working over the coming months to improve its PAX Portal, which is used to apply for sanctions permits and send “secure” sanctions-related inquiries to the government, the office said in a Feb. 21 email to industry. The improvements will “enhance user experience and overall functionality,” Australia said, including by “improving the process to apply for a sanctions permit.” PAX users will see some visual changes to the portal, along with “minor bug fixes,” the email said, and the “underlying functionality of PAX will be largely the same as it is now.” Australia is expecting some larger changes involving the portal’s functionality to be released around April.

The U.S. and 10 of its close allies held the first meeting last week of the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT) Steering Committee, the group formed last year to report on North Korea-related sanctions violations and evasion. The committee, which also includes Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea and the U.K., was established after Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council proposal that would have extended the “panel of experts” that had been monitoring U.N. sanctions against North Korea (see 2410170003).

The Bureau of Industry and Security’s ongoing export control policy review is likely to result in an initial set of recommendations involving advanced technology exported to China, Akin Gump said last week.

Many opportunities exist to increase the effectiveness of U.S. financial sanctions, researchers said during a Feb. 20 hearing of the congressionally mandated U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Any potential U.S.-Russia agreement to end the war in Ukraine will likely take at least a year to come to fruition, researchers and policy experts said, although some U.S. sanctions could be lifted in the meantime.

Karalyn Mildorf, a former partner at White & Case, has joined Clifford Chance to work on international trade and national security issues, the firm announced. Mildorf's practice centers on Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. matters, compliance with the U.S. outbound investment security program, and more, the firm said.

Ethiopia reaffirmed its commitment to "accelerating its accession process" to the World Trade Organization with aims to conclude talks by the 14th Ministerial Conference in March 2026, the WTO announced. WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala met with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali and the country's steering committee on WTO access at the African Union Summit on Feb. 16 to discuss ramping up accession negotiations, the WTO said.

The U.K. has extended, effective Feb. 21, the antidumping duties on corrosion-resistant iron and steel products from China, until Feb. 9, 2028, the Department for International Trade announced. The duties range from 17.2% to 27.9%, including the 27.9% rate applied to non-individually examined exporters. The goods covered are "flat-rolled products of iron or alloy steel or non-alloy steel; plated or coated by hot dip galvanisation with zinc and/or aluminium and/or magnesium, whether or not alloyed with silicon; chemically passivated; with or without any additional surface treatment such as oiling or sealing," of specific metal content and "presented in coils, cut-to-length sheets and narrow strips." Excluded from the duties are products made of stainless steel, silicon-electrical steel and high-speed steel "not further worked than hot-rolled or cold-rolled."