The Treasury Department officially published a rule this week delaying the effective date of new regulations that were set to make investment advisers subject to anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing requirements. The original final rule, which was issued in August 2024 and scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2026 (see 2408290024), will now apply starting Jan. 1, 2028. Treasury previewed the delay in July (see 2507240021).
The U.K. on Sept. 22 removed Tatiana Evtushenkova -- director of the venture capital firm Redline Capital U.K. and member of the board of directors for Redline Capital Management -- from its Russia sanctions list. The U.K. originally sanctioned Evtushenkova for her ties to Russian businessman Vladimir Evtushenkov. The country didn't provide a reason for the delisting.
The Commerce Department’s spring 2025 regulatory agenda for the Census Bureau includes a new mention of a proposed rule that could require exporters to report the country of origin for certain foreign-produced goods. Census said it will propose a new conditional data element for “country of origin” when the foreign indicator is selected in the Electronic Export Information filed in the Automated Export System. The rule also will propose “remedial changes” to the Foreign Trade Regulations to “improve clarity and to correct errors.” Census had hoped to issue the rule in July. The agency has been studying alternative ways to collect the country of origin information after receiving significant pushback from companies and trade groups that said a new reporting requirement would lead to costly compliance challenges (see 2203160026, 2301230008, 2309130002 and 2403270056).
After two days of talks between U.S. and Chinese officials, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that they and Chinese counterpart Vice Premier He Lifeng have a "framework" for a deal for China's Byte Dance to divest TikTok to U.S. buyers, and that deal will be completed on Sept. 19 as Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump talk about the divestiture.
Former U.S. trade representative Michael Froman, at an event hosted by the centrist think tank Brookings Institution, said deciding how to apply export controls is "really difficult," and quite technical, as technologies evolve.
The Bureau of Industry and Security last week added 32 entities to the Entity List, most of them based in China, for either circumventing export controls on China, supplying controlled items to Russia, evading BIS end-use checks, supporting China’s military modernization, or other activities that BIS said breached U.S. export rules.
The president of Mexico has introduced a bill increasing tariffs on goods from countries with which it does not have a free trade agreement, including China. The measure would bring most tariffs to a rate of 35%, with some as high as 50%.
The Census Bureau is seeking public comments by Nov. 10 on an information collection involving the Automated Export System, it said in a notice released this week. The agency also said it's working on a separate rule that would help it record the country of origin for exports of foreign-produced goods (see 2508130022, 2203160026, 2301230008, 2309130002 and 2403270056). In addition, it's working on a "future rule" to address "the duplicative nature of the State of Origin data element," an issue that has been raised by Census officials and trade groups for at least two years (see 2310310053 and 2310240069).
The State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls will again renew relaxed export restrictions for certain defense goods and services involving Cyprus, it said in a final rule released this week and effective Oct. 1. The agency has issued the renewal each year since 2020 (see 2309130028), suspending its policy of denial for exports, reexports and transfers of defense articles on the U.S. Munitions List to Cyprus. The move also suspends the policy of denial for retransfers and temporary imports destined for or originating in Cyprus and brokering activities involving Cyprus. The latest renewal expires Sept. 30, 2026.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week removed sanctions on Belarusian national Iryna Litviniuk, which were imposed in 2022 for "exploiting" the Guatemalan mining sector, and Musbah Mohamad M Wadi, who was sanctioned in 2020 for his ties to a network of smugglers "contributing to instability" in Libya. OFAC had originally added Litviniuk to the Specially Designated Nationals List under its Global Magnitsky sanctions regulations, and it added Wadi under its Libya sanctions. The agency didn't provide more information about the delistings.