Public comments on the Commerce Department's upcoming American AI Exports Program are due by Nov. 28, according to a Federal Register notice released this week. Commerce announced on Oct. 21 that it would be asking industry for feedback on how it should shape the program and ensure that it complies with export controls and other national security regulations (see 2510220008).
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, reintroduced a bill Oct. 23 that aims to expedite permits to export liquefied natural gas to non-sanctioned, non-free trade agreement countries. Applications to export LNG to these countries would go through the same accelerated approval process as free trade countries.
A bipartisan group of four House members led by Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., introduced a bill Oct. 24 that aims to transfer about $300 billion in frozen Russian assets to Ukraine. The legislation, which was referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is a companion to a bill the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved Oct. 22 (see 2510220035).
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said after two days of meeting with Chinese negotiators, he anticipates a threatened additional 100% tariff on Chinese goods won't come Nov. 1, and that the Chinese will defer their critical minerals export control licensing scheme.
The Treasury Department should endorse a protocol that would allow financial institutions to prove that a digital-asset wallet holder isn’t subject to U.S. sanctions while keeping that holder’s identity private, consulting firms and digital-assets companies told the agency.
The Trump administration said it has secured, or soon will secure, commitments from Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam to cooperate on export controls, investment restrictions and other economic-security-related trade measures.
The U.S. has removed its arms embargo on Cambodia because of the country's "diligent pursuit of peace and security," the State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls announced Oct. 27.
The EU and Uzbekistan concluded their bilateral negotiations on market access to services and goods, which the EU touted as a "significant milestone in Uzbekistan's accession to the World Trade Organization," the European Commission announced. The bilateral trade deal includes Uzbekistan's commitments on "maximum tariff rates for import and export of goods" and the nation's concessions in services. The commitments will be "embodied in the future Protocol of Accession of Uzbekistan to the WTO," the commission said. The EU and Uzbekistan also signed the Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement on Oct. 24, which boosts bilateral cooperation across trade and investment issues, the commission said.
A recently published EU Parliament briefing summarizes the EU's approach to dual-use export controls, the main export control issues facing its legislators, how experts view the EU's export laws and the role Parliament can play. The briefing noted that Parliament has until Nov. 8 to "raise any objections" to the EU's September update to its dual-use export control list, which included items that couldn't be agreed to at multilateral export control forums because Moscow was blocking their passage (see 2509090009).
The European Commission on Oct. 23 imposed antidumping duties on screws without heads from China. The duties range from 54.7% to 72.3% and follow from an investigation that found that Chinese headless screws were injuring the EU industry. In the EU, the industry for this product is located in Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Poland.