Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., introduced a bill Dec. 17 to sanction foreign persons that undermine Lebanon’s democratic institutions and processes. The bill also would codify sanctions imposed under executive order 13441 against those who undermine Lebanon’s sovereignty and democratic institutions. The bill, which has a wide range of other Lebanon provisions, is meant to strengthen the Middle Eastern country as it seeks to rebound from the recent war on its territory between Hezbollah and Israel. It was referred to Cardin’s committee.
A bipartisan group of six senators urged the Biden administration Dec. 17 to sanction foreign entities involved in illegally smuggling gold from Sudan to the United Arab Emirates and other countries.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is extending the public comment period for an information collection involving export licensees transferring an active export license to another party. The agency collects information from both parties to make sure shipments exported under the license won’t be diverted or “used for purposes contrary to the authorized use of the approved license.” Comments were previously requested in October (see 2410010014), but BIS is allowing for another 30 days, i.e., by Jan. 22.
The U.K. last week alerted traders that the country’s Customs Declaration Service currently can’t accept certain “special and diacritic characters,” including percent signs, brackets, pound signs, letters with accent signs, and more. The country is asking traders not to use those characters in their license applications “until the issue has been resolved” in the spring of 2025. If traders already have approved or pending license applications with those characters, they should contact the U.K. government so the license can be reissued or amended.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is placing new export controls on certain toxins, chemicals and other items that can be used to make bioweapons as part of a final rule to align its restrictions with allies'.
The European Commission on Dec. 19 opened a safeguard investigation on alloy imports to look into whether global overcapacity and trade-restrictive measures in other major markets have injured the EU alloy industry, the Directorate-General for Trade announced. If the investigation finds injury to the EU industry, the commission can propose safeguards, which would need approval from a majority of EU member states, the commission said. The investigation shall run a maximum of nine months. The EU can impose provisional duties for up to 200 days if the preliminary determination in the investigation lays out "clear evidence that increased imports have caused or are threatening to cause serious injury," the commission said.
The Canadian government intends to create a new framework for eradicating forced labor from supply chains, its minister of export promotion, international trade and economic development, Mary Ng, said in a Dec. 18 response statement. The proposed legislation would require government entities and businesses "to scrutinize their international supply chains for risks to fundamental labour rights and take action to resolve these risks," and, "a new oversight agency will be created to ensure ongoing compliance."
The State Department approved a possible $130 million military sale to Norway, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said Dec. 17. The sale includes a “M1156A1 Precision Guidance Kits Fuzes" and related equipment, and the principal contractor will be Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems.
David Rivera, a former Republican member of Congress from Florida, was charged this week with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act after he allegedly failed to report receiving millions of dollars in exchange for lobbying the Trump administration to remove sanctions on a Venezuelan businessman.
The Biden administration said this week it has received assurances that the United Arab Emirates has ended weapons transfers to Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia group, meeting a key demand of U.S. lawmakers who had threatened to oppose an arms sale to the UAE over its RSF support.