The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control agreed on a $1.7 million settlement with PACCAR Inc., of Bellevue, Washington, for 63 violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran by PACCAR’s subsidiary, OFAC said in an Aug. 6 notice. The subsidiary, Netherlands-based DAF Trucks N.V., sold 63 trucks worth more than $5 million to European customers that DAF knew intended to sell the trucks to Iran, OFAC said.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Aug. 6 issued a set of Venezuela-related frequently asked questions, amended 12 general licenses, created 13 new general licenses and released a Venezuela sanctions guidance detailing which types of transactions are authorized between U.S. companies and Venezuela. The moves were in coordination with President Donald Trump’s Aug. 5 executive order that expanded certain sanctions on Venezuela.
The Trump administration has “done virtually nothing to support exports,” failing to open new foreign markets for U.S. sellers while also tightening export controls, according to an Aug. 2 report by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. At the same time, U.S. export growth has “dropped sharply,” the report said. “Unless the president reverses course, his trade policy will continue to weaken rather than strengthen the US economy as well as undermine the global trading system,” the report said.
The Office of the High Commissioner for the United Nations Human Rights issued a report calling for sanctions against Myanmar and companies run by the country’s military, the OHCHR said in an Aug. 5 press release. The report also calls for an arms embargo and cites 14 foreign companies from seven nations that have exported “fighter jets, armored combat vehicles, warships, missiles and missile launchers” to Myanmar since 2016. The sanctions and arms embargo will weaken the country’s military and stop Myanmar from committing human rights violations, OHCHR said. The report specifically mentions Myanmar companies Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited and Myanmar Economic Corporation, which it said are owned by military leaders. The two companies control “at least 120 businesses involved in everything from construction to pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, insurance, tourism and banking,” the press release said.
U.S. sanctions on Iran will force the country to come to the negotiating table but may be permanently damaging U.S. relationships with other trading partners, said James Cartwright, a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a current board director for the Atlantic Council.
Iran said it may take a “third step” to further breach the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action if the agreement’s parties do not do more to mitigate the U.S.’s 2018 withdrawal from the JCPOA, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in an Aug. 1 press conference. Iran also called on the agreement's parties to help mitigate the impacts of U.S. sanctions. “Sanctions make fulfilling some of our promises harder … [but] one of the opportunities that sanctions provide us is increased empathy and cooperation among us,” Iran said. Iran last month surpassed the enriched uranium limit that was agreed to as part of the JCPOA, sparking concern from the European Union and additional threats of sanctions by the U.S. (see 1907080019).
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Aug. 3 issued a “Russia-related directive” and a set of frequently asked questions to pair with President Donald Trump’s Aug. 1 executive order on chemical and biological weapons sanctions.
President Donald Trump’s Aug. 1 executive order (see 1908020020) announcing a second round of sanctions on Russia under The Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act includes export licensing restrictions for certain Commerce-controlled goods and technologies, the State Department said. In a fact sheet issued Aug. 2, the agency said all license applications for exporting chemical or biological weapon-related items to Russian state-owned entities are subject to a policy of presumption of denial. License exceptions, however, will "continue to be available" to U.S. companies involved in existing contracts with Russian customers, the State Department said.
CBP updated its mitigation guidelines for export control seizures to include new mitigating factors, aggravating factors, a new list of remission terms and the elimination of the terms “technical violations” and “substantive violations,” CBP said in its updated July guidelines. In previous years, CBP distinguished between technical and substantive violations but said in its most recent guidelines that the terms were “confusing and misleading” to both CBP officers and the public because they were not used by other licensing agencies.
The U.S. publicly sanctioned two Venezuelan military officials for “gross violations of human rights,” the State Department said Aug. 2. The agency said the U.S. sanctioned Rafael Enrique Bastardo Mendoza, commander of Venezuela’s police special forces, and Ivan Rafael Hernandez Dala, commander of military counter intelligence, for acts that were “documented extensively in the July 5, 2019 report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights ... [that] noted at least 7,523 extrajudicial killings documented by a Venezuelan non-governmental organization.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement that “in addition to the designation of Bastardo and Hernandez, I am publicly designating Bastardo’s spouse, Jeisy Catherine Leal Andarcia, and Hernandez’s spouse, Luzbel Carolina Colmenares Morales, as well as the minor children of both officials.”