The upcoming U.S. outbound investment review tool probably won’t be used to unwind past deals, and will likely only target investments in specific, sensitive technology areas, said Laura Black, a former Treasury Department official. But she said companies still should prepare for a new outbound investment executive order and be ready for other jurisdictions to implement their own outbound investment controls, including in the EU.
World Trade Organization members on Jan. 27 appointed new chairs for the Negotiating Group on Rules and the Committee on Agriculture in Special Session, the WTO announced. Iceland's Einar Gunnarsson will chair the rules group and Turkey's Alparslan Acarsoy the agriculture committee. Gunnarsson will head the "second wave" of fisheries subsidies talks following the fisheries agreement at the 12th Ministerial Conference. Acarsoy will "steer the process to build momentum on agriculture negotiations," the WTO said.
In a joint statement after the second annual deputies' meeting for the NAFTA successor, U.S., Mexican and Canadian officials said they talked about the concrete steps needed to ensure that goods made with forced labor cannot be imported into Mexico, Canada or the U.S.
Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., is working on a bill to revise certain aspects of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, he said in a brief interview at the Capitol last week. There are a “lot of opportunities” under the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) partnership that “we haven’t realized right now,” Gallagher said, adding that the ITAR “remains a barrier to cooperation with the Aussies and the Brits.” It “makes no sense to me,” he said.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and ranking member Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, told U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai that USMCA's full potential has not been realized, and that USTR must pursue "robust enforcement."
The Combatting Global Corruption Act, a bill that would rank countries on their efforts to fight corruption, and would direct the State Department to evaluate whether the worst offenders should be subject to Magnitsky Act sanctions, was introduced this week in the Senate. It's the same bill that was introduced in early 2021 (see 2102120035).
The U.S. should impose sanctions against China for allowing its companies to continue to supply semiconductors and other dual-use technologies to Russia, said Sen. Bob Menendez, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Although the U.S. has penalized specific Chinese companies for supplying Russia -- including new sanctions this week -- Menendez said he wants to see a more “robust” set of measures.
Republicans named members to the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party. The committee will be bipartisan, but its Democratic members have not yet been announced.
The U.S. should double down on its resources, oversight and enforcement to prevent Russia from acquiring semiconductors and other dual-use goods used to power its war against Ukraine, the Silverado Policy Accelerator said in a report this week. If the broad Western export controls against Russia aren’t followed up with strict enforcement, the think tank said, Moscow will continue to find ways to import chips, including from China.
The U.K. House of Commons' International Trade Committee opened a call for evidence as part of its inquiry on the U.K.'s trade sanctions on Russia. Interested experts, stakeholders and parties that can speak to the role the Department for International Trade plays in developing, implementing and enforcing the trade-related parts of the sanctions on Russia can submit evidence by March 17. The committee said it also wants evidence pertaining to the impact of Russian trade-related sanctions on U.K. businesses, supply chains and consumers, as well as the effectiveness of government support in mitigating the impact of the sanctions.