Senior State Department official Brian Nichols met with staff members from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Dec. 6 to seek their input on U.S. sanctions policy toward Venezuela, according to a State Department spokesperson.
A dozen House Democrats, led by Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., recently introduced a bill that asks the Biden administration to coordinate with Mexico to increase outbound inspections by CBP on the land border with Mexico, with the aim of reducing the number of guns smuggled from the U.S. to Mexico.
The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee is pushing CBP to roll out its long-awaited electronic export manifest within the next COAC term and make progress on aligning truck manifests with both Canada and Mexico to streamline exports traveling by land.
Chinese drone-maker Autel Robotics hasn’t received any “inquiries” from U.S. government officials investigating whether the company should be placed on the Entity List, an Autel spokesperson said in a Dec. 1 email. The spokesperson said Autel is “solely dedicated to the development and production of civilian drones,” despite a letter last week to the Biden administration from leaders of the House Select Committee on China saying the company is affiliated with China’s military (see 2312010012). The letter asked the administration to add Autel to the Entity List and subject it to U.S. investment restrictions.
More than 60 House members, led by senior Ways and Means Committee Democrat Rep. Mike Thompson of California and Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to negotiate an end to China's retaliatory tariffs on American wine, and to negotiate lower tariffs in India and Vietnam, where American wine faces 150% and 50% tariffs, respectively.
The U.S. should place export controls and investment restrictions on Chinese drone maker Autel Robotics, which has ties to the country’s military and uses parts from at least one other Chinese company on the Entity List, the leaders of the House Select Committee on China said in a letter last week to the Biden administration. The lawmakers also said they’re concerned that the Chinese government uses Autel’s technology for human rights abuses in Xinjiang and that the company sells its products to Russia.
A House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy and Regulatory Affairs hearing focused on the need for more domestic mining of critical minerals, but administration witnesses noted that imports -- and subsidizing processing of domestically mined minerals -- are just as essential to uninterrupted supply.
Republican leaders of the House Financial Services Committee urged Congress this week to exclude a measure from the upcoming 2024 defense spending bill that could lead to new guardrails around U.S. outbound investments into China. They said existing sanctions and export control measures are sufficient to target Chinese military and technology companies, and any new investment restrictions would only limit American “control, influence, and intelligence gathering” in China.
Ted Sherman joined Hasbro as senior director for global trade compliance, he said in a post on LinkedIn. Sherman, who sits on the American Association of Exporters and Importers executive committee, was previously at Medtronic and Target.
A new bipartisan bill in the Senate and House would allow DOJ to “more quickly” seize sanctioned Russian assets through existing forfeiture processes and transfer proceeds from those assets to help Ukraine’s reconstruction efforts. The Asset Seizure for Ukraine Reconstruction Act, introduced this week, would lift the $500,000 cap on administrative forfeitures of assets owned by Russian oligarchs and others, and would also “clarify DOJ’s transfer authority, ensuring that the U.S. government can transfer to Ukraine all the funds it acquires through seizure of Russian oligarch assets,” according to a news release.