Marissa Cloutier, a former government official who worked on foreign military sales and State Department export controls, has joined K&L Gates as a national security policy adviser, the firm announced. Cloutier was most recently the chief of the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls’ Compliance and Civil Enforcement Division. She left the government earlier this year while on a special assignment as the Air Force’s foreign military sales country director for Latin America.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, reintroduced a bill March 3 to sanction foreign persons who engage in or facilitate forced organ harvesting in China. The legislation was referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It is a companion to a bill that Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., reintroduced in late February (see 2502250056).
The State Department has officially redesignated the Yemen-based Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization, it said in a Federal Register notice this week. The designation is effective March 5, the date the notice was scheduled to be published.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned Iran-based Behrouz Parsarad, who was the administrator of Nemesis, a former online darknet marketplace that allowed users to trade illegal drugs and services. OFAC said Parsarad created Nemesis and “held full control over the marketplace and its virtual currency wallets,” earning millions of dollars from the fees he charged users with every transaction. The agency said Nemesis was taken down in 2024 after an “international law enforcement operation.”
U.S. oil company Chevron will have until 12:01 a.m. ET on April 3 to wind down certain oil activities in Venezuela that had been authorized by an Office of Foreign Assets Control general license, OFAC said March 4. Updated General License 41A, which replaces GL 41, authorizes certain transactions “ordinarily incident and necessary to the wind down of transactions” related to Chevron’s joint ventures in Venezuela involving state-owned energy company Petroleos de Venezuela.
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China and Canada announced new retaliatory trade restrictions against the U.S. -- and Mexico announced plans to soon release its own set of countermeasures -- after President Donald Trump's administration on March 4 increased tariffs on goods from all three countries. Industry associations said the counter-duties could damage a range of American export industries, including shippers of agricultural products, spirits and other commercial goods.
The Trump administration plans to build international support for using sanctions to counter Iran’s nuclear weapons program, deputy secretary of state nominee Christopher Landau said March 4.
Former Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, who worked on key sanctions and defense trade issues during the Biden administration, has joined Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service as a distinguished fellow in diplomacy, the school announced this week. Campbell helped oversee U.S. efforts to reduce defense trade restrictions with Australia and the U.K. under the AUKUS partnership (see 2404030050 and 2409180025) and testified before Congress about the administration's efforts to counter China’s support for Russia’s defense industrial base (see 2407300033).
David Newman, the DOJ’s second-highest-ranking national security official under the Biden administration, has joined Morrison Foerster to advise on sanctions issues, export control enforcement, reviews before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., and more. Newman previously served as the principal deputy assistant attorney general for DOJ’s National Security Division, where he oversaw federal prosecutors working on cases related to sanctions breaches, export control evasion and other national security issues.