The U.S. will soon impose a 100% tariff on China, “over and above any Tariff that they are currently paying,” along with new export controls on “any and all critical software,” President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social. Trump said the measures, which could take effect Nov. 1 or sooner, are in response to China’s recent announcement that it will impose new export license requirements on overseas exports if they contain certain levels of Chinese-origin material.
Beijing this week announced a host of new export license requirements for shipments of rare earths, superhard materials and related equipment, including new rules to restrict overseas exports if they contain certain levels of Chinese-origin materials. The country’s Ministry of Commerce also added more than a dozen companies to its Unreliable Entity List for arms sales to Taiwan or for other actions that it said hurt Chinese companies or the country’s “sovereignty” or security.
The Bureau of Industry and Security added 29 entities to the Entity List, including three addresses, for either helping to illegally supply U.S.-origin items to Iran or for their ties to Iranian procurement networks, BIS said in a final rule released and effective Oct. 8. BIS said the entities supplied or diverted aircraft parts, drone components, electronic items and other products to Iran, including to Iranian companies already on the Entity List or the Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals List.
The U.K. on Oct. 3 revised the addresses for Embers of an Empire and Rampage Productions under its domestic counterterrorism sanctions and removed an alias for Europaisch-Iranische Handelsbank under its Iran (nuclear) sanctions regime.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned nearly 40 people and entities with ties to networks helping to buy sensitive goods and technology for Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, along with its missile and military aircraft production efforts.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week fined British Virgin Islands-based company Hallewell Ventures and its owner, Albert Avdolyan, $374,474 for violating sanctions against Russia. BIS said Hallewell illegally reexported a Bombardier Global 7500 jet from the Maldives to Russia without a license.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is rolling back a Biden-era interim final rule that increased restrictions on firearms exports, the agency said in a final rule effective Sept. 30. BIS said it decided that the rule should be “rescinded in its entirety” after hearing from U.S. firearms manufacturers that the controls “would cost them hundreds of millions of dollars per year in lost sales.”
China on Sept. 25 added three U.S. companies to its Unreliable Entity List for arms sales to Taiwan and three others to its Export Control List because they “endanger” Chinese national security, the Ministry of Commerce said.
Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., urged three government watchdog offices to investigate whether two Trump administration officials had conflicts of interest while advocating for the U.S. to sell advanced AI chips to the United Arab Emirates.
Taiwan is probing the business credentials of a Taiwanese company added to the Bureau of Industry and Security's Entity List earlier this month (see 2509120077), Taiwan's International Trade Administration said, according to an unofficial translation. The company, Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics, is a "representative office of a Hong Kong company in Taiwan," and an "investigation revealed that the representative office does not possess import and export qualifications," Taiwan said. "The Ministry of Economic Affairs will further verify whether the representative office's actual operations are consistent with its original application."