Five Republican senators sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging him to re-designate the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and as Specially Designated Global Terrorists, citing the Yemen-based group’s recent attacks in the region.
The Census Bureau and the Bureau of Industry and Security have restarted work on their long-awaited routed export rule and hope to make more progress in the next year, said Gerry Horner, chief of the Census Trade Regulations Branch.
An industry advisory committee is planning to push the Bureau of Industry and Security to release guidance on how companies should be applying the agency’s various foreign direct product rules.
The Bureau of Industry and Security last week removed four Chinese companies from the Unverified List after it was able to successfully complete end-use checks.
If U.S. policymakers become tempted to use sanctions to prevent a potential conflict with China, they should expect to face a wide range of challenges in wielding such economic tools, speakers said at a Dec. 15 event hosted by the Center for a New American Security.
A trade group is urging the Bureau of Industry and Security to revise its export controls surrounding encryption and mass-market goods, saying some of those less-sensitive items should no longer be subject to strict license requirements. The group also asked BIS to eliminate some encryption-related reporting requirements that burden compliance professionals and said the agency should devote more resources to its licensing division, which will help speed up decisions on applications and classification requests.
The Treasury Department is preparing a response to questions it received from Congress about some of the money Iran has received through recent U.S. sanctions waivers, a Treasury official said Dec. 13.
Reps. Nathaniel Moran and Michael McCaul, Republicans from Texas, introduced a bill to make permanent U.S. export control regulations that prohibit foreign countries from transferring certain U.S. technology to Iran.
A new blog post from the Treasury Department highlights the impacts that U.S. sanctions and export controls are having on Russia’s economy, outlining how the country’s “macroeconomic performance is suffering” and its policy responses to Western sanctions are “growing increasingly expensive.” The blog describes some of the issues that have contributed to Russia’s contracting economy, its difficulty in sourcing parts and components for its military, the “volatility” of its exchange rate and more. Russia has the resources to “maintain its war in the short-term,” Treasury said, but “its leaders face increasingly painful trade[-]offs that will sacrifice long-term prospects -- as underinvestment, slow productivity growth, and labor shortages will only deepen.”
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned Mexico-based Malas Manas, a transnational human smuggling and drug trafficking group, and Luis Eduardo Roman Flores and Joel Alexandro Salazar Ballesteros, two human smugglers. OFAC said the group smuggles people from Latin America across the U.S. Southwest border and into Arizona, and also smuggles weapons and narcotics into the U.S., including fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine. Roman Flores and Salazar Ballesteros both work on behalf of Malas Manas.