The White House plans to hold a summit with the semiconductor industry today, April 12, to address the global semiconductor shortage and other supply chain issues. The meeting will include representatives from 20 major companies, including carmakers General Motors and Ford, chip companies GlobalFoundries and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, and several major technology companies, including Alphabet, Dell Technologies and Intel, the White House said April 9. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese and Commerce Department Secretary Gina Raimondo also will participate.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control designated the Abid Ali Khan Transnational Criminal Organization for the “unlawful smuggling of foreign nationals,” the agency said. OFAC also sanctioned Pakistani national Abid Ali Khan, the group's leader, and three of his associates: Redi Hussein Khal Gul, Shakeel Karim and Mohammed Choudry Ikram Waraich. The agency announced the sanctions April 7 (see 2104070033).
The Office of Foreign Assets Control amended the base civil penalty amount for certain sanctions violations to reflect inflation adjustments for its civil monetary penalties, it said in a notice. The change, effective April 12, revises the definition for OFAC’s “applicable schedule amount,” which establishes a base penalty for non-egregious sanctions violations cases that do not involve a voluntary self-disclosure. For transactions valued at $200,000 or more, the applicable schedule amount will be $311,562, which is the maximum civil monetary penalty amount for a violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, OFAC said. The agency said these changes were not required but done so that its base penalties “correspond appropriately” to OFAC’s civil monetary penalties, which are adjusted annually for inflation. OFAC last revised the applicable schedule amount definition in August 2020 (see 2008100012).
A brief sketch of President Joe Biden's budget priorities, released April 9, proposes increasing Commerce Department funding by 28%, or $2.5 billion. In a bullet list of where extra funding would go, without line-item details, the administration said it would like to guarantee “Commerce has additional staff and resources to analyze export control and Entity List proposals, enforce related actions, and implement executive actions related to export controls and secure telecommunications.”
Intel “generally” opposes the U.S. imposing “unilateral export controls” on foreign tech companies suspected of threatening U.S. national security, Tom Quillin, senior director-security and trust policy, told a virtual forum convened April 8 by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security to identify risks in the semiconductor supply chain (see 2103290003). BIS said it will use feedback from the forum, plus comments received in its notice of inquiry (see 2104060045), to help shape recommendations to the White House on President Joe Biden’s Feb. 24 executive order to relieve supply chain bottlenecks (see 2103110047 and 2102240068).
President Joe Biden has yet to choose a leader for the Bureau of Industry and Security, leaving the agency without a clear direction as it considers competing visions for the direction of American technology policy. The rival factions seeking to influence Biden’s choice underscore how much of an outsized role the once relatively unknown agency will play in implementing the Commerce Department’s efforts to outpace China in emerging technologies and control what lawmakers say is an overdue set of critical technologies.
The United Kingdom's Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation published an update to its sanctions on ISIL (Da’esh) and al-Qaida, amending the entry for Abu Bakar Ba'asyir. In an April 7 trade notice, OFSI noted that Ba'asyir was released from prison in Indonesia on Jan. 8, 2021, after serving his sentence.
India's state-run oil refiners are preparing to buy Iranian crude oil due to expectations that the new U.S. administration will ease sanctions on the Middle Eastern nation, according to a senior oil ministry representative, Bloomberg reported April 8. Indian refiners are making preparations so that purchasing contracts can be quickly executed when sanctions are lifted. Preparations include drafting commercial terms and enacting a system to quickly assess crude quality, the outlet reported. The desire for Iranian oil comes from India's dissatisfaction about the prices of oil from Saudi Arabia. Indian refiners have been buying oil from Guyana and Norway while also importing more from the U.S. India imports more than 85% of its total oil, Bloomberg said.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Myanma Gems Enterprise, a state-owned entity responsible for “all gemstone activities” in Myanmar, OFAC said April 8. The agency said gemstones are a “key economic resource” for the Myanmar military regime “that is violently repressing pro-democracy protests in the country.”
Officials from the Commerce, Energy and State departments held a virtual event with Malaysian government officials this week to commend Malaysia’s efforts to implement strategic export controls. The event was held to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Malaysia’s Strategic Trade Act, which provides a “strong regulatory framework” for export controls, Jeremy Pelter, acting undersecretary for the Bureau of Industry and Security, said in an April 8 statement. The U.S. agencies said they remain “committed to advancing strategic trade control cooperation now and into the future.”