President Donald Trump announced a "very substantial phase 1" deal in the Oval Office Oct. 11, saying the Chinese and American negotiators came to a deal on intellectual property, financial services and agricultural sales. The president said China will buy as much as $40 billion to $50 billion worth of American commodities. He also said good progress had been made on issues around technology transfer from American companies to Chinese partners.
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order giving the Treasury Department “very significant” new sanctions authorities to target the Turkish government, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Oct. 11. The authorities will include primary sanctions and secondary sanctions, Mnuchin said, but stressed the U.S. is not yet activating the sanctions. “We are putting financial institutions on notice that they should be careful, and that there could be sanctions,” Mnuchin said. “Again, there are no sanctions at this time, but this will be the broadest executive authorities delegated to us.”
FedEx urged a court to deny the Commerce Department’s motion to dismiss FedEx’s June lawsuit against the agency, saying Commerce’s points were invalid, court records show. FedEx’s original suit alleged Commerce’s export controls were “unconstitutional,” “impossible to comply with” and placed an “overbroad, disproportionate burden” on FedEx (see 1906250030). Commerce responded in September by asking the court to dismiss the suit because it said it was a political matter, was precluded from judicial review under the Export Control Reform Act, and that FedEx did not raise a “patent violation” and did not meet the conditions to file a due process claim (see 1909110073).
President Donald Trump said he will soon authorize “powerful” sanctions against Turkey for its recent military actions in Syria. The sanctions will target former and current Turkish government officials and anyone contributing to Turkey’s actions, Trump said, adding that the U.S. will also “immediately stop” negotiating a trade deal with Turkey.
The United Kingdom’s Department for International Trade on Oct. 10 posted guidance documents on the U.K.’s respective export licensing policies for Senegal, Guinea -Bissau and Benin. Each of the three members of the Economic Community of West African States, and as such the U.K. “will not issue an export license for small arms ad light weapons, components or ammunition,” the three guidances all said. The U.K. “will only consider issuing license applications where the ECOWAS Commission has issued an exception to its moratorium,” UKDIT said. The guidances note that military items transiting the U.K. “are still regarded as being exported when they leave the country and are therefore subject to control.” There’s an exception to that policy on transit when “certain military goods destined for Senegal, meaning that a licence is required to transit goods through the UK or to tranship them in the UK with a view to re-exportation to Senegal,” UKDIT said.
Adobe will deactivate some of its accounts in Venezuela by Oct. 29 to comply with U.S. sanctions, according to an unofficial translation of a notice released by the company. Adobe said it is working with customers and distributors to offer them refunds for “any paid license” periods. “We will carefully follow the course of events and try to restore services in Venezuela as soon as possible when the law permits,” the notice said.
Japanese and South Korean officials will meet in Geneva today to address South Korea’s World Trade Organization dispute over Japan’s export restrictions, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said. Ahead of the meeting, Japan reiterated that its export control measures on certain shipments to South Korea, which took effect last month (see 1909090041) are necessary to protect Japan’s export control system. “The update is necessary … to prevent the proliferation of weapons such as nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their means of delivery,” the country said. “Japan will make clear that the update is WTO-consistent.”
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned four people involved in a South African corruption network, Treasury said in an Oct. 10 press release. The network “leveraged overpayments on government contracts, bribery, and other corrupt acts” to fund political payments to control government actions, Treasury said. The measures include sanctions on Ajay Gupta, Atul Gupta, Rajesh Gupta and Salim Essa.
Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., agreed to support legislation that would impose sanctions on Turkey unless the Trump administration certifies every 90 days that Turkey is not operating in Syria, according to a framework of the sanctions released Oct. 9. The legislation would sanction all U.S. assets belonging to Turkey’s top officials, including its president, vice president and ministers of defense, foreign affairs, treasury, trade and energy. It would also block U.S. defense exports to Turkey's military and impose sanctions on any foreign person or entity that sells to Turkey’s military or energy sector.
The Trump administration plans to soon issue export licenses to allow a “select few” U.S. companies to supply nonsensitive goods to Huawei, an Oct. 9 report in The New York Times said. Trump approved the step in a meeting last week, the report said, a little more than a month after the Commerce Department renewed the temporary general license for Huawei until Nov. 18 (see 1908190039).