Australia launched a new inquiry last week to study its approach to negotiating trade agreements. The country’s Joint Standing Committee on Trade and Investment Growth is accepting submissions on issues related to Australian trade issues through Sept. 22. Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell, who asked for the inquiry, said the country has “worked so hard in the last year to advance our trade diversification agenda,” pointing to trade deals with India, the U.K. “and hopefully soon, the European Union.”
Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asked the Kyrgyz Republic to “swiftly” investigate allegations that the country’s government has helped Russia evade international sanctions. In an Aug 8 letter to President Sadyr Japarov, Menendez said Kyrgyzstan has “dramatically expanded its import-export business with Russia” since Russia launched its war against Ukraine, and said Kyrgyzstan’s “lack of enforcement or worse -- complicit facilitation of trade with Russia in products that implicate sanctions, such as drones, aircraft parts, weapon accessories, and circuitry -- is reportedly enabling Russia to evade international sanctions.”
Congress needs to enact stronger export controls legislation to complement the Biden administration’s outbound investment restrictions against China unveiled last week (see 2308090066 and 2308100045), said House Foreign Affairs Indo-Pacific Subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Young Kim, R-Calif. Kim said she’s “glad” the administration is “acting to restrict U.S. investment of critical technologies developed in China,” and she said the measure “should not be treated as a silver bullet.”
The U.S. may run into challenges enforcing aspects of its new outbound investment restrictions on China, especially for intercompany transfers and investments, Sarah Bauerle Danzman, a former State Department official, said during a webinar hosted by the Center for a New American Security last week. She said investors will likely need more guidance on the issue whenever the Treasury Department releases regulations for the regime.
Citing a Financial Times report that Chinese artificial intelligence developers are evading controls on advanced semiconductors by using cloud services, members of the House introduced a bill to stop those practices, called Closing Loopholes for the Overseas Use and Development of Artificial Intelligence (CLOUD AI). The bill was introduced last month, and its text published this week.
Lawmakers, business groups and think tanks gave a mixed bag of immediate feedback on the Biden administration’s executive order restricting outbound investments in China, with some applauding the government’s initial, cautious approach, and others expressing frustration that the restrictions don’t go far enough.
Miller & Chevalier international lawyer Christopher Stagg is co-chairing the American Bar Association's export controls and economic sanctions committee, he announced on LinkedIn. Stagg joined Miller & Chevalier in 2021 after serving as a senior policy adviser with the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls at the State Department. At Miller, he focuses on export controls, economic sanctions and Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. matters.
The U.S. this week announced a new set of sanctions against Belarus, targeting eight people, five entities and one aircraft with ties to President Alexander Lukashenko's regime. The designations target people and entities that have helped the government evade sanctions or are involved in the government’s “continued civil society repression” or its “complicity” in Russia’s war against Ukraine. The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued two new general licenses to authorize certain transactions with two of the newly sanctioned entities.
The Biden administration this week unveiled its plans for a new outbound investment screening regime, which will restrict investments in three advanced technology sectors in China and set notification requirements for other sensitive outbound investments. The new screening regime, outlined in an executive order signed Aug. 9 by President Joe Biden, will come into force after the Treasury Department writes regulations. The agency is soliciting public comments on how it should implement the program, set certain definitions, impose due diligence requirements and more as part of an advance notice of proposed rulemaking released along with the order.
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