A Canada-based contractor for the U.S. Navy and the company’s president were fined for their involvement in a scheme that included unlicensed exports to China and giving false information to the Commerce Department’s Office of Export Enforcement, the Justice Department said in a Dec. 4 press release. The company, OceanWorks International Corp., and its president, Glen Omer Viau, were fined $84,000 and $25,000, respectively. Viau was credited for time served.
Exports to China
Recent editions of Mexico's Diario Oficial list trade-related notices as follows:
China confirmed it will waive some import tariffs on U.S. soybeans and pork after receiving applications from Chinese companies, according to a Dec. 6 report from Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency. China's Customs Tariff Commission will “dedicate a range of goods” to benefit from tariff exemptions, adding that companies will buy the products through “independent negotiation.” Chinese companies can import U.S. soybeans and pork “as they see fit” and “bear the related profits or losses,” Xinhua said. China released its first batch of tariff exemptions on U.S. goods in September, exempting 16 items (see 1909110051). Soon after, China added certain agricultural products, including pork and soybeans, to the list of exempted goods (see 1909130013).
China’s Ministry of Finance announced new and amended tariffs for imports of certain “technical equipment,” China said in a Dec. 6 press release, according to an unofficial translation. The changes will exempt customs duties for certain imports starting Jan. 1, 2020, and will levy import tariffs on other goods starting July 1, 2020.
China stood by its position that tariffs must be reduced if it reaches a phase one trade deal with the U.S., despite recent comments from President Donald Trump (see 1911080042) that the U.S. has not agreed to lift any tariffs. “China believes that if the two parties reach a first-phase agreement, tariffs should be reduced accordingly,” a China Ministry of Commerce spokesperson said Dec. 5, according to an unofficial translation. The spokesperson said the two sides “have been maintaining close communication.”
The U.S. needs to increase “engagement” with China to reach a trade deal, said Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., adding that the U.S. has stronger, not weaker, trade relationships with its allies since President Donald Trump became president.
Apple was fined about $465,000 for violations of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Sanctions Regulations after it hosted, sold and “facilitated the transfer” of software applications and content belonging to a sanctioned company, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said in a Nov. 25 notice. Apple allegedly dealt in “the property and interests” of SIS d.o.o., a Slovenian software company added to OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals List in 2015.
An Iranian businessman was sentenced to 46 months in prison for illegally exporting carbon fiber from the U.S. to Iran, the Justice Department said Nov. 14. Behzad Pourghannad worked with two others between 2008 and 2013 to export the carbon fiber to Iran from third countries using falsified documents and front companies, the agency said.
Texas voters send 36 members to the House of Representatives, and 18 attended a press conference Dec. 5 to say they want a U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement vote as soon as possible. But only one of the 13 Democrats in the Texas delegation attended -- Rep. Henry Cuellar, who represents Laredo and McAllen. Cuellar, the biggest booster of the new NAFTA in the Democratic caucus, said he'd been updated about the state of play between Mexicans and the U.S. trade representative at 9:30 a.m. that day, and “we're very, very, very close,” he said, but he said Mexicans tire of what they feel is a “one-more-thing”-style of negotiating from the Americans.
The Dec. 3 House passage of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2019 will have serious repercussions for U.S.-China trade talks if the bill becomes law, a China Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson threatened on Dec. 4. H.R. 649 and the companion S. 178 that cleared the Senate in September demand tough U.S. sanctions on China over reports of government-run detention centers imprisoning millions of Muslim-minority Chinese citizens in Xinjiang.