Robert Rasmussen, a technology policy coordinator within the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, resigned from his role after accepting the terms of the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program, he announced March 8 on LinkedIn. Rasmussen also worked as an export compliance specialist in the Bureau of Industry and Security from 2016 to 2020 before joining DDTC in 2023. The White House offered the deferred resignation program to federal employees earlier this year, promising to pay them through September in exchange for their resignation.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and ranking member Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., introduced a bill last week aimed at curbing China’s export of fentanyl precursor chemicals to Mexican drug traffickers.
A House Republican proposal to pass a temporary government spending measure, or continuing resolution (CR), for the rest of FY 2025 would prevent Congress from weighing in on export control policy, such as by opposing the easing of restrictions on Russia, according to a memo released March 8 by Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash.
Canada last week announced new sanctions against people and entities for either helping Iran acquire controlled technology or having ties to human rights violations committed by the Myanmar military regime.
House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar, R-Mich., asked the Bureau of Industry and Security to brief his panel on how it's restricting China’s access to U.S. university supercomputers.
The Bureau of Industry needs better resources and technology, and the semiconductor industry needs better tracking tools, to prevent China from illegally receiving and accessing advanced chip technology, a researcher told a BIS advisory committee this week.
The U.K. issued updated guidance last week on how exporters can use Assimilated General Export Authorizations (GEA), the general export licenses that were "assimilated" into U.K. law after the country’s exit from the EU.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., reintroduced a bill March 5 that would authorize sanctions on the Yemen-based Houthis for human rights abuses, including unlawful killing, torture, prolonged and arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, hostage-taking of U.S. nationals abroad, use of child soldiers and gender-based discrimination.
The House Financial Services Committee unanimously approved several bills March 5 dealing with foreign investment and sanctions.
The U.K. on March 7 removed Russian bank Rosbank PJSC and Turkish energy firm Active Denizcilik Ve Gemi Isletmeciligi Anonim Sirketi from its Russia sanctions list. Rosbank was sanctioned in 2023 for operating in Russia’s financial services sector, and Active Denizcilik was sanctioned last year for doing business in Russia’s energy sector. The U.K.’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation didn’t give a reason for their removals.