Senators have enough bipartisan support to add the USDA secretary to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. and expand CFIUS jurisdiction to cover a broader range of agriculture-related purchases, lawmakers said this week. Several said the committee isn’t doing enough to prevent Chinese government-affiliated companies from purchasing U.S. land and want to expand its reach, particularly after CFIUS determined last year that it didn’t have the jurisdiction to intervene in a Chinese purchase of land near a North Dakota Air Force base.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. should look to review a licensing agreement between Ford and a Chinese battery manufacturer, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said in a recent letter. Rubio said the agreement would allow Ford to establish a Michigan factory that would license its technology from China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL), which the senator said is the world's largest electric vehicle battery producer and has ties to the Chinese government.
The top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee applauded the Biden administration's revised conventional arms transfer policy, saying it will give “greater consideration for human rights abuses” when State Department officials adjudicate transfers and sales. Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York said the new policy, released last week (see 2302230049), “represents a meaningful step forward in ensuring the United States does not contribute to human rights abuses through its arms exports.”
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The Bureau of Industry and Security is considering new export controls on certain machinery or lab equipment used by Chinese suppliers of precursor chemicals, which are used to produce fentanyl. BIS Undersecretary Alan Estevez, speaking during a Feb. 28 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, said the agency is working with the Drug Enforcement Administration “to assess whether we can put restrictions” on those items. “So we're doing that kind of assessment, working both on the enforcement and my export administration side to see what we can do to crack down on that,” he said. Estevez was responding to a question from Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., who asked how the administration is working to “pressure” China to “combat financial flows from illicit fentanyl.”
The Biden administration should be doing more to harmonize its export controls and sanctions lists to more effectively penalize foreign companies that should be subject to strict trade restrictions, lawmakers said this week. Several Republicans suggested they plan to pursue legislation to mandate that the Bureau of Industry and Security’s Entity List be aligned with sanctions lists maintained by the Treasury Department, and at least one lawmaker said BIS should already have taken steps to formally do so.
Madagascar initiated a safeguard investigation covering wheat or meslin flour and imposed a provisional measure Feb. 18, the country told the World Trade Organization's Committee on Safeguards, the WTO said. Madagascar said that interested parties should contact the ANMCC, its National Authority Responsible for Trade Corrective Measures, within 30 days from the investigation's start date.
The EU and the U.K. reached an agreement this week on post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland, potentially ending a dispute that has hung over both sides since the U.K. left the bloc in 2020 (see 2211090023). The Windsor Framework deal, which covers new “arrangements” on customs rules and trade, will allow for the “free-flowing movement of goods” between Northern Ireland and Britain and “removes any sense of a border in the Irish Sea within the U.K.,” the U.K. said in a Feb 27 news release. The deal avoids a hard border between the U.K. and Ireland, an EU member, which could have complicated a range of trade issues.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. will be especially active this year, BakerHostetler lawyers predicted in a webinar hosted by the law firm last week. Lawyer Scott Jansen said he believes “there's going to be actual CFIUS enforcement” despite the committee not issuing an enforcement penalty since 2019. “We believe that there is a great chance that there'll be serious penalties in 2023,” Jansen said, adding that he expects CFIUS to continue to prioritize China-related transactions.
The Republican leaders of the House and Senate foreign relations committees criticized the Biden administration's new Conventional Arms Transfer policies for failing to prioritize the economic competitiveness of U.S. defense companies. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said the new policy “reflects this administration’s fundamental misunderstanding of the challenges we and our allies and partners are facing to obtain the weapons we need to keep our country safe and to deter aggression around the world.” They also said the new policy is missing “transparent criteria” for how the administration evaluates arms transfers.