Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, introduced a bill Dec. 3 that would require sanctions against those who commit "genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity" in Sudan.
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., said Dec. 2 that his bill to expand sanctions on Syria's Bashar Assad regime seems to have stalled in Congress but that he hopes to get it enacted into law next year if not this month.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, on Dec. 3 criticized the Biden administration’s new export controls on advanced computing chips and chipmaking equipment, saying they leave too many loopholes that Chinese companies can exploit to obtain American technology and modernize China’s military. McCaul said he plans to work with the incoming Trump administration to close those loopholes. McCaul made his comments a day after the Bureau of Industry and Security unveiled the new restrictions (see 2412020016).
Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., a senior member of the committee, urged the Biden administration Dec. 2 to impose sanctions in response to the Republic of Georgia’s violent crackdown on peaceful protesters in recent days.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., a proponent of imposing more sanctions in response to Sudan’s civil war, said Nov. 29 that he plans to meet the week of Dec. 2 with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be secretary of state, to discuss several topics, including Sudan.
A bipartisan, bicameral group of four lawmakers announced Nov. 25 the introduction of a bill to create a State Sponsor of Unlawful or Wrongful Detention (SSWD) designation, which would allow the State Department to impose sanctions and other penalties on countries that wrongfully detain Americans.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin, D-Md., urged the Biden administration last week to try to expand and better enforce the U.N. Security Council's arms embargo on war-torn Sudan.
The former chief of staff to then-U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has been chosen for USTR in Donald Trump's second administration.
A key portion of the conference hosted earlier this month by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. focused on the committee’s increasing scrutiny of fund structures and identifying the roles of limited partners in investment transactions, law firms said this month.
More than 40 members of Congress are asking U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to push back against a Colombian plan to investigate U.S. corn subsidies. The letter, led by Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Reps. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., and Dan Kildee, D-Mich., noted that Colombia found that U.S. milk powder exports were subsidized to the extent that countervailing duties were warranted, and "imposed punitive tariffs."