Former chief agricultural negotiator for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Gregg Doud called for the use of the new enforcement mechanism in the USMCA during a House Agriculture Committee hearing May 11.
The chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee used his perch to promote a bill he sponsored that would allow the president to lower duties on non-import-sensitive goods made by a country that lost exports due to coercive actions; increase duties on imports from the "foreign adversary" committing the coercion; and allow the U.S. to more easily facilitate trade, including exports, with the coerced parties (see 2302230021).
The Biden administration’s upcoming executive order on outbound investment is “likely to be coming in the next few weeks,” said Jeannette Chu, vice president for national security policy at the National Foreign Trade Council. Chu, speaking during a May 11 Materials and Equipment Technical Advisory Committee meeting, said she expects the new screening tool to be unveiled around or soon after the G-7 meetings in Japan next week.
The Bureau of Industry and Security needs much more funding to carry out its export control work, lawmakers and former officials said during a House hearing this week. Kevin Wolf, a former senior official at BIS, said Congress should consider doubling -- perhaps quadrupling -- the agency’s resources.
Catherine Hein, former acting principal deputy assistant general counsel of enforcement and intelligence at the Treasury Department, has joined Latham & Watkins in its Washington, D.C.-based Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. and U.S. National Security Practice. While at Treasury, Hein also worked as the CFIUS managing counsel helping review cases before the committee. Her practice will focus on "matters involving CFIUS and US national security regulatory regimes," the firm said.
A new House bill could lead to new sanctions against anyone involved in Iran’s missile or drone program, including buyers and sellers of the drones and those “importing or exporting any restricted missile or drone-related materiel to or from Iran.” The Fight Crime Act, which has bipartisan support, would also sanction people or entities that provide Iran “or its proxies” with products that “may contribute to the development of missiles or drones” or that participate “in joint missile or drone development with Iran or its proxies.”
A former Pentagon official expected to testify before Congress May 11 said U.S. officials for years have “refused” to fix failures in its export control system that allow China to acquire sensitive technologies. Stephen Coonen, who spent nearly 14 years in the Defense Technology Security Administration, including as its senior foreign affairs adviser for China, said he resigned from the agency in 2021 to protest the Bureau of Industry and Security’s “willful blindness” surrounding its export policies.
Brookfield Business Partners, a private equity firm, recently received approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to sell nuclear power company Westinghouse Electric, Brookfield said in a May 5 news release. The company last year said it planned to sell Westinghouse to a consortium led by Canada-based Cameco, a uranium mining company. Brookfield said it’s “progressing other regulatory approvals required to close the transaction which is expected in the third quarter of 2023.”
Rep. John James, R-Mich., introduced a bill this month that could lead to more sanctions on supporters of Iran’s military forces. The legislation, which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs May 5, would sanction foreign people who “support or conduct certain transactions” with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps or “other sanctioned persons.” The full text hasn’t yet been released.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers this week reintroduced a bill that could establish an outbound investment screening regime to prevent China and others from illegally acquiring sensitive U.S. technology.