China filed a request for consultations at the World Trade Organization about Indian tariffs on information and communication technology products and subsidy measures for high efficiency solar photovoltaic modules, the WTO said Dec. 23.
Companies in the U.S. and the EU are increasingly being asked by Chinese business partners to certify that they’re not exporting rare earths in violation of Chinese export restrictions, including in some cases through post-shipment audits, lawyers said.
The U.S. government is taking several steps to curb the transfer of U.S. firearms to drug cartels and other violent groups in Mexico, a State Department official told a congressional panel last week.
A bipartisan group of House members led by Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, introduced a compromise Russia sanctions bill Dec. 18 that they hammered out through a flurry of year-end negotiations.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, R-Fla., led six other House Republicans in introducing a bill Dec. 18 that would increase congressional oversight of exports of advanced AI chips to China and other “countries of concern.”
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the Trump administration will recommend renewal of USMCA only if 20 issues can be resolved, and maybe more, as he told Congress this isn't an exhaustive list.
Open-source intelligence software firm WireScreen this week launched a dataset that tracks electronics trade between China and Russia, it said. The data "captures multiyear electronics trade activity," including details on supplier-customer relationships, product origins and shipment values, the firm said, including the "continued movement of Western-branded electronics through Chinese transshipment points to Russian buyers." WireScreen said the data allows users to identify high-risk parties actively shipping to sanctioned jurisdictions and monitor transshipment patterns.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week renewed two Russia-related general licenses that authorize certain transactions related to crude oil originating from the Sakhalin-2 project and certain transactions with Russian entities related to civil nuclear energy.
The U.S. needs to significantly improve its enforcement of Russia sanctions, especially against the country’s shadow fleet and oil industry, said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and other speakers at a Brookings Institution event this week.
The House passed a bill by voice vote Dec. 15 that would reauthorize the Federal Maritime Commission through FY 2027. The reauthorization was originally to be extended through FY 2029 but was shortened to match a recently enacted Coast Guard reauthorization bill (see 2506300066 and 2509180046). The FMC legislation now heads to the Senate for its consideration.