The U.S. Navy is trying to help commercial cargo ships maintain the alternative trade routes companies have found as the U.S. works to end Houthi attacks on ships transiting the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, Vice Admiral George Wikoff said. And although the U.S. has used sanctions to target several Iran-backed networks helping to supply the Houthis, he said the U.S.-designated terror group is increasingly diversifying its suppliers and is becoming a legitimate technology exporter.
Exports to China
Russian companies have bought millions of dollars worth of drone parts from China-based drone accessories supplier Tarot-RC, risk advisory firm Kharon said Aug. 6. Kharon said the parts were made by Chinese company Wenzhou Feiyue Aviation Technology Co. and have been shipped into Russia in “significant quantities” since the start of 2023 despite claims by Tarot-RC “that it does not engage in such activity.” Trade records and other public data “contradict that assertion, pointing to a consistent influx of Tarot-RC components into Russia, both through direct shipments from Wenzhou Feiyue Aviation Technology Co. and through intermediaries that move products from China and Hong Kong into Russia,” Kharon said.
President Joe Biden this week renewed a national emergency declared last year that authorized the Treasury Department to impose investment restrictions on certain U.S. investments in countries of concern. The emergency was renewed for one year beyond Aug. 9. Treasury is in the process of drafting regulations to govern American investments in certain sensitive technology sectors in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau (see 2406210034 and 2408050038).
Reps. Young Kim, R-Calif., and Colin Allred, D-Texas, introduced a bill last week that would authorize the U.S. president to impose property-blocking sanctions on People’s Republic of China (PRC) entities that harm the environment or public health in Africa.
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The chair and ranking member of the House Select Committee on China, along with a bipartisan group of 53 representatives, filed an amicus brief last week in the suit against the TikTok ban to support the constitutionality of the ban (see 2406070023) (TikTok v. Merrick Garland, D.C. Cir. # 24-1113).
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is requesting comments on how China and Russia are complying with their World Trade Organization commitments, including in its import regulation, export regulation, subsidies, non-tariff barriers, intellectual property rights enforcement, rule of law issues, and trade facilitation, or other issues.
Trade groups, lawyers, investment firms, technology companies and foreign governments suggested a range of changes to the Treasury Department’s proposed outbound investment rules (see 2406210034), echoing calls last year for more clarity surrounding the due-diligence steps that will be required of deal-makers and warning that the U.S. risks chilling a broad range of U.S. ventures in China (see 2310050035). Several commenters also urged the Biden administration not to finalize the new prohibitions without similar buy-in from allies, with at least one group suggesting the U.S. is further from coordinating the rules among trading partners than it has let on.
Taiwan national Pen Yu was sentenced Aug. 2 to three years and eight months in prison for conspiring to commit wire fraud in a scheme to defraud a German biochemical company and divert biochemical products to China using "falsified export documents," DOJ announced. Yu was sentenced by a federal court in Florida, which also ordered the forfeiture of the proceeds of the scheme, which amounted to $100,000.
Parts of the expert testimony submitted by the U.S. in a criminal export control case should be excluded from the trial because the experts relied on State Department commodity-jurisdiction determinations prepared outside the court, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky said July 31. The court said the defendants didn't have a chance to cross-examine the State Department officials who prepared the determinations because they didn't offer testimony during trial.