Although the International Chamber of Commerce’s 2020 incoterms did not make the significant revisions that industries expected, it did introduce several changes that may require updated contacts between importers and exporters.
Ian Cohen
Ian Cohen, Deputy Managing Editor, is a reporter with Export Compliance Daily and its sister publications International Trade Today and Trade Law Daily, where he covers export controls, sanctions and international trade issues. He previously worked as a local government reporter in South Florida. Ian graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Florida in 2017 and lives in Washington, D.C. He joined the staff of Warren Communications News in 2019.
Two bills that could affect trade with Hong Kong and two resolutions criticizing Hong Kong and China passed the House by voice vote on Oct. 15. H.R. 4270, the PROTECT Hong Kong Act, would ban the export of tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper spray to Hong Kong, so that U.S. companies aren't complicit with crackdowns on protestors (see 1909190040). The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, H.R. 3289, requires the State Department to affirm that Hong Kong still deserves its special status in customs and export controls because the one country, two systems agreement for China and Hong Kong is still in force. That bill would also sanction people involved in human rights abuses and the suppression of “basic freedoms” in China and Hong Kong, and would have an annual evaluation of Hong Kong's export control compliance.
Although Trump administration officials have expressed willingness to mediate the Japan-South Korea trade dispute, trade experts suggested the administration -- and members of Congress -- are not currently focused on intervening.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Turkey’s government and issued three general licenses as Congress called for harsher restrictions on Turkey for its military activities in Syria (see 1910140005). OFAC’s sanctions -- issued after President Donald Trump announced an executive order granting the Treasury and State departments new power to sanction Turkey -- target Turkey’s defense ministry, energy ministry, defense minister (Hulusi Akar), energy minister (Fatih Donmez) and interior minister (Suleyman Soylu). Treasury said more sanctions may be coming.
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).
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).
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 Commerce Department’s Oct. 9 blacklisting of several Chinese technology companies may not impact trade negotiations this week but could lead to significant retaliation against U.S. companies, trade experts said. And while the Trump administration insisted the Entity List decisions were unrelated to trade talks with China, the move unnerved U.S. companies impacted by the trade war that fear Commerce’s announcement could expedite the release of China’s so-called "unreliable entity list."
Chinese technology companies and the country’s foreign ministry criticized the U.S.’s decision to add 28 Chinese entities to the Commerce Department’s Entity List, a move that could lead to countermeasures, China said. China denied the allegations in Commerce’s announcement that it was involved in human rights violations of the country's Uighur population and urged the U.S. to “immediately” withdraw the Entity List additions, which it called “serious violation[s]” of international norms. “China will continue to take firm and powerful measures to resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said during an Oct. 8 press conference, according to an unofficial translation of a transcript.