Two Hong Kong bills that could affect trade with the Chinese territory passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee Sept. 25. H.R. 4270, the PROTECT Hong Kong Act, would ban the export of tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper spray to Hong Kong, so that U.S. companies aren't complicit with crackdowns on protestors (see 1909190040).
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Sept. 25 announced sanctions on two subsidiaries of COSCO Shipping Corporation and clarified that the designation does not apply to their parent company or any of other COSCO affiliates. In total, OFAC announced sanctions on five people and six entities and issued a new Frequently Asked Questions document.
The United Kingdom's Department for International Trade issued a Sept. 24 guidance on export controls for dual-use goods, software and technology, goods used for torture and “radioactive sources.” The guidance covers which dual-use items require export licenses, and provides information on nuclear exports and chemical exports, and how they may be impacted by sanctions, embargoes and trade restrictions.
President Donald Trump said he is not planning to impose additional sanctions on North Korea, saying the two sides are “getting along very well.”
United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for a new nuclear deal with Iran and pointed to Donald Trump as the person who should negotiate it, in a Sept. 23 interview with NBC. "I think there's one guy who can do a better deal ... and that is the president of the United States. I hope there will be a Trump deal,” Johnson told NBC.
The United Kingdom plans to impose sanctions on countries that “arrest or intimidate dissident journalists,” Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in an article for The Telegraph. Raab said the "Magnitsky" sanctions will take effect after Brexit, according to a Sept. 23 post on the EU Sanctions blog, and will include bans on U.K. entry and asset freezes.
The European Union has been “very slow” to impose more sanctions on Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro-led regime, a senior State Department official said Sept. 23. The U.S. wants the EU to follow through on sanctions it said it would impose if the Norway-brokered negotiation broke down between the Maduro regime and the opposition party, the official said. The talks ended earlier this month. “We all understand that they have their procedures and that it’s hard with 28 countries,” the official said of the EU, “but I would hope to see movement in October.”
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Sept. 24 sanctioned four entities and four vessels for operating in Venezuela's oil sector.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for Sept. 16-20 in case they were missed.
L3 Harris Technologies reached a $13 million settlement with the State Department for violating the Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, according to an order released Sept. 23 by the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. The violations by Harris Corporation, a technology and defense contractor, occurred before it officially merged in July with L3 Technologies, an aerospace and defense company.