President Donald Trump issued an executive order expanding U.S. sanctions authority against Iran and the Treasury Department announced a series of new Iran sanctions, including measures against senior Iranian officials, metal companies and a vessel. The executive order grants the U.S. the authority to impose a series of new primary and secondary sanctions against people and companies involved with Iran’s construction, mining, manufacturing and textiles sectors, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said during a Jan. 10 press conference. While the executive order only mentioned those four sectors, additional Iranian sectors may be sanctioned, Mnuchin said.
China’s Foreign Ministry criticized a report released this week by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China that called for U.S. sanctions on Chinese officials, saying the commission has no “objectivity or credibility whatsoever.” The report, issued Jan. 8, also called for greater U.S. export controls on surveillance technologies being sent to China and urged the Trump administration to place more Chinese companies and agencies on the Commerce Department’s Entity List due to their involvement in human rights violations (see 2001080039).
The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs began an interagency review of a final rule that would amend the country groups for Russia and Yemen under the Export Administration Regulations. OIRA received the Commerce Department rule Jan. 8.
The Directorate of Defense Trade Controls is holding a webinar Jan. 14 to provide an introduction for its Defense Export Control and Compliance System, DDTC said in a Jan. 9 notice. The new platform, part of DDTC’s “major IT Modernization effort,” will provide industry access to DDTC applications through a single online portal, DDTC said. The agency will release the registration and licensing applications to the DECCS platform in February. The webinar is aimed at helping the “community prepare for the launch” and will include an “introduction of the functionality included in the released applications,” “highlights of changes from current business processes” and “steps users can take now in preparation.” The webinar will be held from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Log-in details are provided in the notice.
A part-owner of a Florida energy company was sentenced to two years in prison for conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Justice Department said Jan. 8. Juan Jose Hernandez Comerma tried to corruptly secure contracts from Petroleos de Venezuela,S.A. (see 1910210065), Venezuela’s state-owned and U.S.-sanctioned energy company, the Justice Department said. Hernandez conspired with two other U.S. businessmen to bribe PdVSA “purchasing analysts,” the agency said. The bribes ensured their companies were placed on PdVSA’s “bidding panels,” the Justice Department said, which allowed them to secure “lucrative energy contracts.” Hernandez provided PdVSA officials with “recreational travel and entertainment” based on the percentage of contracts awarded to his company.
The House passed a bill and a resolution Jan. 8 aimed at protecting the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers and exporters in the 5G sector. The measures also seek to improve the U.S.’s presence at international bodies that set standards for 5G networks and equipment over fears that China will permanently surpass U.S. 5G technology and control the market. The House passed the Secure 5G and Beyond Act, which requires several federal agencies, including the Commerce Department, to “protect the competitiveness” of U.S. companies by completing an assessment of the competitiveness and vulnerabilities of U.S. manufacturers and suppliers of 5G equipment. The bill also requires the agencies to identify “policy options” to close “security gaps” in the U.S. development of “critical technologies.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce laid out its priorities for trade in 2020, and most of them were well-known in 2019: getting USMCA passed; ending steel and aluminum tariffs; negotiating comprehensive trade agreements with Japan, the European Union and the United Kingdom. But lesser-known priorities are: ensuring that new regulations on foreign ownership of American firms are focused on national security issues, and arguing for a balanced approach in the regulations from the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 that protect “national security without unduly hindering legitimate commerce.” The Chamber also said Jan. 9 that it wants Congress to approve “permanent normal trade relations with Kazakhstan and its graduation from the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974.”
The Export Control Reform Act may not result in significantly different controls on emerging technologies (see 1912130055) than what would have been proposed under the U.S.’s existing export control system, a former top Commerce Department official said. Eric Hirschhorn, former undersecretary for the Bureau of Industry and Security from 2010-2017, also said Commerce’s efforts to restrict sales of foundational technologies might be too late. “I have grave doubt whether the assignment to control emerging and foundational technologies will result in controls significantly different from what the existing system -- which operates fairly well -- would have produced,” Hirschhorn said in a Jan. 3 post for China Business Review.
China’s Commerce Ministry criticized the U.S. Commerce Department's decision to place export controls on geospatial imagery software (see 2001030024) and said the U.S. export control system will harm U.S. companies. U.S. export controls, which are scheduled to be imposed on a range of emerging technologies (see 1912160032), will also cause global market uncertainty, China said.
In the Jan. 8 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted: