The Office of Foreign Assets Control revised its Cuba sanctions this week to loosen restrictions on a range of activities and transactions, including for certain financial and internet services. Some changes will allow certain Cuban nationals to open and remotely use U.S. bank accounts and will authorize certain Cuba-related remittances and payments that were restricted by the Trump administration.
The Council of the European Union last week officially adopted new EU-wide supply chain due diligence rules that will require certain companies to conduct specific due diligence on their supply chains, including to root out forced labor.
The State Department this week announced penalties on three people and two entities and their subsidiaries for illegal transfers under the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission should push Congress to devote more funding to the Bureau of Industry and Security, Commissioner Michael Kuiken said during a commission hearing last week.
The U.S. government should combine its various export control and sanctions lists into two distinct lists, which could allow the government to better implement trade restrictions and improve industry compliance, a congressional commission heard this week. The commission also discussed whether U.S. export control agencies should have to release more information about their licensing decisions, with one witness saying more transparency would increase business certainty, while another said it would discourage candor between the government and exporters.
A disruption involving help desk services for customs business numbers used by Canadian importers and customs brokers is leading to delays and increased storage fees, the Canadian Society of Customs Brokers said in a letter to the government this week. The group urged the Canada Revenue Agency and the Canada Border Services Agency to fix the issue, saying the disruption is causing days worth of delays for routine procedures that previously took minutes.
A December executive order that gave the U.S. broader authority to sanction financial institutions involved in shipping goods to Russia has had a “meaningful impact” on Russia’s military industrial supply chains so far, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said this week.
The U.K. this week issued a new warning to shipowners and brokers seeing large profits from selling older ships to unknown buyers, saying they need to make sure they aren’t selling to a person with ties to Russia or who plans to violate Russian oil sanctions.
The U.S. declined to prosecute a Massachusetts biochemical company that was part of an illegal export scheme involving China, the first time DOJ’s National Security Division has offered a corporate declination under its recently updated voluntary self-disclosure program.
The U.S. hasn’t done enough to coordinate its China-related trade restrictions with U.S. allies, especially its semiconductor export controls, Craig Allen, head of the U.S.-China Business Council, told Biden administration officials this week.