Member nations adopted “a number of” new export controls at the Wassenaar Arrangement’s plenary session earlier this month, with a focus on “proliferation-sensitive exports,” according to a Dec. 6 statement released by the plenary chair. They also updated a 2007 guidance for exports of small arms and light weapons and amended a guidance for export controls on the disposal of surplus or demilitarized military equipment. The member states also released a summary of the changes made to multilateral export controls of dual-use goods and technologies. A 243-page report describes the list of dual-use goods and technologies discussed during the meetings.
About a year into the Trump administration's maximum pressure sanctions campaign on Iran, the effort has done nothing to bring Iran to the negotiating table, panelists said during a Dec. 12 Atlantic Council event. U.S. sanctions have instead emboldened a more aggressive Iran, panelists said, which is growing increasingly frustrated with its unwilling European trade partners and will likely continue breaching the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Intel named Jeff Rittener chief government affairs officer and general manager of the company's Governments, Markets and Trade group, Intel said in a Dec. 10 news release. “In this role, Rittener is responsible for overseeing the company’s global government affairs efforts and the worldwide team of trade professionals responsible for ensuring the company’s full compliance with U.S. and other government regulations in the areas of export, customs and sanctions,” the company said. Rittener currently represents Intel on the Commerce Department Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee.
The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking comments on an information collection used to respond to congressional and industry requests to make “foreign availability determinations” about the Export Administration Regulations, according to a notice. In the information collection, exporters are urged to submit data to “support the contention” that items controlled for national security reasons are “available-in-fact, from a non-U.S. source, in sufficient quantity and of comparable quality so as to render the control ineffective.” Comments are due Feb. 10.
A bipartisan bill aimed at sanctioning fentanyl traffickers will be included in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act expected to pass early next week, according to a Dec. 11 press release from Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark. The bill was passed in the Senate in June as part of the must-pass defense authorization bill (see 1906270054). In addition to sanctioning Chinese and other fentanyl traffickers, the Fentanyl Sanctions Act would urge the Trump administration to pursue multilateral sanctions with U.S. partners and to create a commission to report on how to better control shipments of synthetic opioids.
The State Department sanctioned Saudi and Chechen government officials for human rights violations, the agency said Dec. 10. The targets include Mohammed al Otaibi, former consul general of Saudi Arabia in Turkey, and Aslan Iraskhanov, head of the Ministry of Interior Affairs for the city of Grozny in the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation.
The State Department sanctioned two former Paraguayan government officials due to “significant corruption,” the State Department said Dec. 10. The agency’s sanctions targeted former president of Paraguay’s judicial disciplinary board and senator Oscar Gonzalez Daher and former attorney general Javier Diaz Veron. Also sanctioned were Daher’s immediate family (Nelida Chaves de Gonzalez, Oscar Ruben Gonzalez Chaves and Maria Gonzalez Chaves) and Veron’s family (Maria Selva Morinigo, Yeruti Diaz Morinigo, Manuel Diaz Morinigo, Alejandro Diaz Morinigo and Veron’s minor child).
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned an Iranian shipping network, its leader and three Mahan Air sales agents, Treasury said in a Dec. 11 press release. The shipping network illegally smuggled “lethal aid” from Iran to Yemen on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force, Treasury said, and the three sales agents, based in the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong, were targeted for working for a sanctioned Iranian airline.
President Donald Trump will nominate Jessie Liu to be undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Crimes, a key sanctions role within the Treasury Department, the White House said Dec. 10. Liu is the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and previously served as deputy general counsel for Treasury and in the Justice Department’s National Security Division. The position was previously held by Sigal Mandelker, who resigned in October (see 1910020061).
U.S. companies are encountering issues when trying to return faulty products to parties on the Entity List, members said during a Dec. 10 Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee meeting. The problem occurs after companies legally import goods -- which later turn out to be defective -- from an Entity List party, the members said. The goods are not able to be easily exported for return, they said.