The U.S., the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada announced sanctions against China for human rights abuses in an internationally coordinated effort to condemn China’s treatment of its Uyghur population. The sanctions, announced March 22, target officials and an entity in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region for leading the repression and detention of Muslim minorities.
Tyler McGaughey, former Treasury Department deputy assistant secretary for investment security, is joining Winston & Strawn's Washington office, the firm announced March 18. McGaughey will advise clients on Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. matters.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is planning to issue another set of emerging technology controls this year and hopes to propose them for multilateral control in 2022, said Matt Borman, BIS’s acting assistant secretary for export administration. Borman also said he hopes BIS can fall into a more predictable “sequence” for its emerging and foundational technology control effort and move past last year’s disruptions to multilateral regimes caused by the pandemic.
Companies will continue to see a rise in global scrutiny of foreign direct investments as European countries try to match the U.S.’s investment screening regime, which has set the standard for investment reviews, trade lawyers said. Several countries, including the United Kingdom and Germany, are quickly bolstering their regimes while the U.S. is continuing to expand its jurisdiction to keep China and sanctioned countries from acquiring critical technologies, the lawyers said.
Brenda Smith, CBP executive assistant commissioner-trade, will retire at the end of the month, Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller said March 17 at the start of a Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee meeting. Also retiring soon is Steven Graham, international trade liaison in the Office of Trade Relations, COAC member Lenny Feldman said during the meeting.
A former World Trade Organization appellate body member and a longtime U.S. trade representative's environment advisory committee member agree that an attempt to create a carbon adjustment mechanism by the European Union is likely to violate trade law and support protectionist aims.
Disappointed with the pace of the United Kingdom government's response on forced labor issues in China's Xinjiang region, parliamentarians on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee issued a report on the situation, including policy recommendations on how to further crack down on modern slavery in Xinjiang. The BEIS Committee, responsible for oversight of the BEIS Department, issued sweeping recommendations for the government agency for its role in upholding human rights commitments in relation to business ties with China. The March 17 report declared that the BEIS Department “has shown little sign that it is taking a proactive or meaningful lead on investigating UK business links to forced labour and other human rights abuses in China or elsewhere.”
House Ways and Means Committee chief trade counsel Katherine Tai was confirmed by the Senate as U.S. trade representative on March 17, by a 98-0 vote. Politicians from both parties, trade skeptics and export-focused trade associations all hailed her promotion to the Biden administration Cabinet. She is the first woman of color to be USTR.
The U.S. sanctioned 24 Chinese and Hong Kong officials responsible for interfering in Hong Kong’s autonomy, building on previous designations issued last year. The new sanctions, announced March 17, target 14 vice chairs of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee and officials in the Hong Kong Police Force’s National Security Division, the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office and the Office for Safeguarding National Security.
The European Union notified the United Kingdom about its breaching of provisions of the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland in the withdrawal agreement signed following Britain's departure from the EU. The March 15 letter of formal notice said the U.K. has violated the terms of the Ireland and Northern Ireland provisions regarding the movement of goods and pet travel, the European Commission said in a March 16 news release. The EU gave the U.K. a month to respond to the notice. The EU is challenging the U.K.'s extension of the Brexit grace period on food imports to Northern Ireland. EC Vice President Maros Sefcovic sent a separate letter to David Frost, U.K. co-chair of the Joint Committee, calling on the U.K. to end the Brexit grace period and imploring “good faith” consultations with the Joint Committee.