European Union diplomats have agreed to impose new sanctions on 11 individuals and entities for their role in human rights abuses in China, Germany's DW Akademie reported. The new sanctions will include an asset freeze and a travel ban and will apply to individuals and entities from China and other countries. The measures are expected to be formally approved March 22 and will mark the EU's first sanctions against China since a 1989 arms embargo following the Tiananmen Square massacre. Two EU diplomats said that the list includes four Chinese officials and one entity accused of violating the human rights of the Uyghur Muslim minority in China's Xinjiang region, DW reported. Sanctions also will be levied against officials from Russia, Libya, South Sudan and North Korea.
Dual U.S.-Mexican citizen Jessica Johanna Oseguera Gonzalez pleaded guilty on March 12 to engaging in financial dealings with Mexican companies that had been identified as Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers, the Department of Justice announced in a press release. Oseguera Gonzalez, the daughter of Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion head Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, aka “El Mencho,” faces a maximum of up to 30 years in prison and is set to face sentencing on June 11. She pleaded guilty to violating the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act by engaging in property transactions with six Mexican businesses that had been designated by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Florida resident Victor Mones Coro was sentenced to 55 months in prison for violating U.S. sanctions on Venezuela by chartering private flights for top Venezuelan officials, the Department of Justice said March 17. Sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Mones Coro provided millions of dollars in charter flight services to former Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami, his frontman Samark Lopez Bello, Venezuelan Supreme Court President Maikel Moreno and President Nicolas Maduro's 2018 campaign for president. The chartered flights violate the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions on the Venezuelan officials for their role in subverting democracy and proliferating authoritarianism. Mones Coro also will pay a $250,000 fine and serve two years of supervised release.
The Bureau of Industry and Security fined a California-based satellite communications company $122,000 for illegally exporting controlled goods to Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Brazil. BIS said the company, Comtech Xicom Technology, exported more than $150,000 worth of “traveling wave tubes” (TWT) without licenses, a March 18 order said.
A bipartisan group of senators called on the Biden administration to issue more sanctions to penalize China for interfering in Hong Kong’s autonomy. In a resolution introduced March 19, the senators, led by Marco Rubio R-Fla., Ben Cardin, D-Md., Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and Ed Markey, D-Mass., said the administration should consider more sanctions under the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act and the Hong Kong Autonomy Act (see 2011120005) to “impose costs” on Chinese officials
The Commerce Department should expand export restrictions on China’s top chipmaker to prevent it from accessing a broader range of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, two U.S. lawmakers said. In a March 18 letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, asked the agency to apply the foreign direct product rule to China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, which would restrict the company’s ability to import certain foreign-made semiconductor equipment that is built with or that incorporates U.S. technology. The move would subject SMIC to similar restrictions imposed by the Bureau of Industry and Security on other Chinese companies on the Entity List, including Huawei (see 2012210044).
A Boston software company may have violated sanctions against U.S.-embargoed countries, it said in its March 16 Securities and Exchange Commission filing. SEMrush Holdings said it recently submitted an initial voluntary disclosure to the Office of Foreign Assets Control after identifying “customer accounts” that may involve transactions with people in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria and the Crimea region of Ukraine. The company said it plans to provide OFAC with a final report on its disclosures and has not yet received a “determination” from the agency. SEMrush said it may face penalties. A company spokesperson didn't comment.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is planning to issue another set of emerging technology controls this year and hopes to propose them for multilateral control in 2022, said Matt Borman, BIS’s acting assistant secretary for export administration. Borman also said he hopes BIS can fall into a more predictable “sequence” for its emerging and foundational technology control effort and move past last year’s disruptions to multilateral regimes caused by the pandemic.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for “reciprocity” and “proportionality” in the European Union's COVID-19 vaccine export regime, at a March 17 press conference. To incentivize greater openness in other countries' vaccine exports, von der Leyen placed a special emphasis on reciprocity, detailing how the EU is prioritizing exporting vaccines to countries that create their own vaccines. “We think this is an invitation to be open,” she said. “So that we also see exports from those countries coming back to the European Union.”
The U.S. continues to oppose Nord Stream 2 and threatened more sanctions against entities involved in the completion of the European gas pipeline, which is nearing completion despite U.S. pressure. Sanctions against the pipeline have “significant” bipartisan support from Congress, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said March 18, adding that the agency is “tracking efforts” to complete the project and is monitoring companies who may be involved. “The Department reiterates its warning that any entity involved in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline risks U.S. sanctions and should immediately abandon work on the pipeline,” Blinken said. The secretary's comments came a month after a bipartisan group lawmakers asked the State Department for an update on the agency’s implementation of sanctions against the pipeline (see 2102170013).