Companies shouldn’t expect a significant amount of early enforcement action from the U.K.’s new Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation, which isn’t yet a finished product, its leader, Anna Deibel-Jung, said last week.
The State Department needs a better system to review export license applications for firearms, and the Bureau of Industry and Security needs to address employee shortages that are hindering its end-use checks for those exports, the Government Accountability Office said in a new report.
Although the new administration appears to be gearing up to build on U.S. outbound investment restrictions against China, President Donald Trump’s affinity toward dealmaking means that tighter rules aren’t a guarantee, an analyst said. Other analysts said the U.S. will face challenges trying to convince its allies in Asia, including Japan and South Korea, to also impose restrictions on outbound deals in China.
The Bureau of Industry and Security has paused reviews of new export license applications submitted this month, without explanation, causing concern and frustration among exporters and trade compliance officials.
EU lawmakers and the European Commission offered a strong rebuke this week of the U.S.’s latest export controls on advanced artificial intelligence chips, saying the restrictions could slow European AI technology innovation and set unfair buying restrictions across member states.
The first few weeks of the new Trump administration have shown that there appears to be a “fair amount of continuity” from the Biden administration on certain China trade policies, including around export controls and outbound investment restrictions, a former Biden National Security Council official said.
The U.S. should consider strengthening export controls on technology that China needs for its aerospace industry, an aviation industry expert told a U.S. commission last week, but not so much that it risks decoupling the two nations’ aviation supply chains.
The European Commission is considering exempting more than 80% of companies that otherwise would be subject to import tariffs under the bloc’s upcoming Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said this week. Hoekstra said the EU has found that the law may disproportionately target companies that aren’t responsible for most carbon emissions.
Jamieson Greer, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, endorsed U.S. outbound investment restrictions against China during a Senate Finance Committee hearing Feb. 6.
The Bureau of Industry and Security revoked the export privileges of a Florida-based freight forwarding company, the company’s owner and five other businesses for illegally shipping export controlled items to Russia as recently as last year, according to a BIS temporary denial order and court documents.