Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, applauded the Biden administration’s recent sanctions against the Cuban government and said he believes more are coming. Menendez, D-N.J., said the U.S. should impose more sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act for human rights violations, similar to the Treasury Department’s July 22 designations of Cuba’s defense minister and a defense agency (see 2107220055). “Secretary [Antony] Blinken has made clear the Administration will continue holding human rights abusers accountable,” Menendez said July 28. “I urge the Administration to consider additional Global Magnitsky designations.”
The Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned two Cuban police officials and a police agency for human rights violations stemming from the government’s recent violent crackdown on pro-democracy protestors, according to a July 30 news release. The designations target the Policia Nacional Revolucionaria and Director Oscar Alejandro Callejas Valcarce and Deputy Director Eddy Manuel Sierra Arias.
The confirmation of two Treasury Department nominees slated to oversee the agency’s sanctions work may be in jeopardy over the Biden administration's decision not to sanction the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
The Biden administration should expand the Bureau of Industry and Security, establish a clear definition for critical technologies and improve information sharing to boost corporate due diligence as part of a national technology strategy, national security experts said. BIS specifically has a larger role to play to protect the U.S. technology supply chain, which should extend beyond just export controls, the Center for a New American Security said in a July 29 report.
The shift from NAFTA to USMCA has been taxing for vehicle manufacturing sector companies, panelists on a KPMG seminar said about the trade deal, one year in. But for Georgia-Pacific, compliance is simpler after the rewrite. Myesha Cottom, director of international trade at Georgia-Pacific, said that getting rid of the template for NAFTA goods and going to minimum data elements means less administrative burden. "I’m optimistic that the administrative burden will continue to decrease," she said during the July 28 webinar.
The House’s Republican Study Committee released a counterproposal to the Senate’s Endless Frontier Act that would call for a host of new sanctions against China, continue U.S. export control authorities and make some changes to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. The committee’s Countering Communist China Act, released July 29, calls for broad U.S. sanctions actions, including designations against Chinese technology applications, various senior government officials, foreign people that steal U.S. intellectual property and “foreign persons that knowingly spread malign disinformation … for purposes of political warfare.” The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control would also be authorized to hire 10 new employees to “carry out activities of the Office associated with the People’s Republic of China.”
Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., along with two other House Republicans, introduced a bill that would require the administration to impose sanctions on "persons who are knowingly responsible for or complicit in, or have directly or indirectly engaged in, supporting the illegal occupation of Tibet." The bill's text was published July 26. "In rejecting the seven-decade long illegal occupation of Tibet by the forces of the Chinese Communist Party, the United States of America would provide relief to a long-suffering people and reinforce its reputation as a strident defender of global human rights," the bill says. The bill says that the administration would be required to impose the sanctions within 180 days of the bill becoming law, unless the president says that not applying sanctions to a certain party is in the national interest of the U.S. In that case, he would have to give Congress a justification for the waiver.
The U.S. is planning a sanctions campaign to target Iranian procurement programs for drones and guided missiles, The Wall Street Journal reported July 29. The sanctions could target providers of parts used to build the drones and missiles because U.S. military officials have seen a “major increase” in the use of drones against U.S. forces, the report said. The sanctions could target Iranian import channels from Russia and China, the report said. The Treasury Department and the Office of Foreign Assets Control didn’t comment.
The U.S. may need to create new, stronger tools other than its current sanctions and export controls to penalize foreign countries that violate international laws, said Nazak Nikakhtar, former acting undersecretary of the Bureau of Industry and Security. While Nikakhtar cautioned the U.S. against overusing trade restrictions, she also said they need to be bolstered because some foreign governments and companies are “easily” circumventing them.
The United Kingdom published an annual report for 2020 on its strategic export controls that includes licensing data, U.K. and EU legislation changes, and results of the Court of Appeal judgment on military exports to Saudi Arabia. In the July 21 report, the U.K. released data points such as the number of standard individual export licenses, which totaled 15,334, with 62% processed within 20 working days -- a drop from 77% in 2019. The report said 268 SIELs were refused or revoked. The publication also highlighted the resumption of trade in arms and military equipment to Saudi Arabia following the Court of Appeal judgment. The court in April OK'd a judicial review of the decision on export licensing for Saudi Arabia, the report said. The publication also touched on the Export Control Joint Unit and its 385 export control compliance checks in which 48% of first-time checked firms were compliant.