Sens. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Ben Sasse, R-Neb., introduced legislation to sanction people or companies that “enable the significant and serial theft” of U.S. intellectual property. The bill would authorize blocking measures and asset freezes and allow the president to include an entity on the Commerce Department’s Denied Persons List. “This bipartisan legislation will help end foreign theft of innovative technologies invented in the United States and will send a strong signal to bad actors across the globe,” Van Hollen said in a June 11 statement. The U.S. should “stop leaving an open door for China and other adversaries to steal intellectual property and undercut our strength,” Sasse said.
The U.S. will continue to authorize sanctions against Belarus officials and others for undermining the country’s democratic processes, the White House said June 11. The authorization, introduced in 2006, will remain in effect for at least one more year beyond the expiration date of June 16, 2020. The sanctions block property and freeze assets of designated people or companies.
Sudan urged the U.N. Security Council to lift sanctions on the country, saying current sanctions are worsening the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, a June 9 news release said. At the very least, the U.N. should establish “clear, well-identified and measurable benchmarks” for lifting the sanctions, a Sudan representative said. U.N. officials said the country is still marred by violence and sanctions are justified. “It is not to punish Sudan, but to support and achieve sustainable peace,” the Sudan Sanctions Committee chair, Estonian ambassador to the U.N. Sven Jurgenson, said in a report to the Security Council.
The International Criminal Court criticized a U.S. executive order that authorized sanctions against the ICC (see 2006110028), calling the order an “unacceptable attempt to interfere with the rule of law” and saying it feels “profound regret” at the U.S.’s decision. “The ICC stands firmly by its staff and officials,” it said June 11, adding that the sanctions are aimed at “influencing the actions of ICC officials in the context of the Court's independent and objective investigations and impartial judicial proceedings.” President of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute O-Gon Kwon called the sanctions “unprecedented.”
Clete Willems, former White House deputy assistant to the president for international economics, believes the U.S. must convince allies to present a unified front to China on industrial subsidies, censorship and cybersecurity issues. Willems, who is now a lobbyist with Akin Gump, was speaking during a June 12 online program of the Asia Society. When it's just the U.S. arguing for reforms, he said, China can portray it as the U.S. trying to keep China down. But, he said, it might be possible to get China to change, “if we are able to portray them as an international outlier, which I think they are.”
The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs began an interagency review for a final Commerce Department rule that will implement certain export control decisions from the 2019 Wassenaar Arrangement plenary. OIRA received the rule June 9. Commerce officials said in May the agency was preparing to issue several emerging technology controls (see 2005190052), including six controls agreed to at Wassenaar. OIRA is still reviewing a rule to implement export control decisions from the 2018 Wassenaar Arrangement plenary (see 2005210046).
Companies operating in Hong Kong and mainland China should be reviewing their portfolios in preparation for increased U.S. export controls, which could impact a wide range of global firms, a Mayer Brown trade lawyer said. Aside from sanctions against Chinese officials for interference in Hong Kong’s autonomy, the U.S. is likely to align export control policies for Hong Kong with its policies toward mainland China, creating a significantly more restrictive trade environment, the lawyer said.
The Commerce Department announced a new rule that it said will help U.S. companies participate in international standard-setting bodies where Huawei is a member. Under the rule, companies will no longer need an export license to disclose technology to Huawei if that disclosure is for the “purpose of standards development in a standards-development body,” Commerce said in a June 15 press release. In addition, companies may only disclose technology to Huawei if that technology would not have required an export license before Huawei’s placement on the agency’s Entity List last year.
State-controlled and private Chinese buyers continue to purchase U.S. soybeans, despite growing tensions between the two countries (see 2005290047), Bloomberg reported June 10. Chinese companies purchased at least 10 cargoes of soybeans this month, Bloomberg said, which came after earlier reports that China was halting certain agricultural imports from the U.S., including soybeans, pork, corn and cotton (see 2006010044).
The U.S. is looking to seize a Waltham, Massachusetts, home from two people who allegedly used it to illegally export goods to several countries, including China, the Department of Justice said in a June 11 news release. Anni Beurklian, a naturalized citizen, and her husband, Antoine Ajaka, a Lebanese citizen and legal U.S. resident, used the home as a base for their company, Top Tech US Inc., which allegedly exported electronics and computer equipment illegally, DOJ said. Beurklian and Ajaka fled the U.S. in 2018 during plea negotiations to avoid prosecution, it said.