The Biden administration is making progress in its effort to persuade American allies to adopt outbound investment restrictions similar to the ones the U.S. is pursuing, a Treasury Department official said July 25.
The Biden administration is considering imposing additional economic sanctions on Georgia in response to the country’s recent anti-democratic actions, a State Department official told a congressional panel July 23.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned a network of people and companies in China involved in procuring items for North Korea’s weapons programs, which the country is using to provide missiles to Russia’s military. OFAC said North Korea is relying on this Chinese network to buy foreign-sourced materials and parts that it can’t produce domestically. The companies “consolidate and repackage items for onward shipment” to North Korea, the agency said, and hide the “true end-user” from the manufacturers and distributors of those items.
A July proposal to add nearly 60 military bases to the jurisdiction of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (see 2407090003) shows that sensitive real estate issues are “top of mind” for the committee, said Matt Miller, an executive with data discovery firm HaystackID.
China lifted its antidumping measures on Japanese stainless steel products July 23, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced, according to an unofficial translation.
Stopping U.S. firms from participating in RISC-V, an open-source semiconductor architecture that policymakers fear China will use to evade export controls, would only hurt American innovation and competitiveness, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said this month.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. saw a spike in enforcement activity in 2023, fining four parties for breaching mitigation agreements and investigating several others for failing to comply with CFIUS mandatory filing requirements, the committee said in an annual report released July 23.
Minsu Fang, a Chinese national, was indicted for allegedly conspiring to import what the U.S. government believes to be "the largest amount of fentanyl precursors found in the Southern District of Texas and one of the largest in the country," DOJ announced July 22.
A new research briefing by the U.K. Parliament's House of Commons examines the current state of sanctions against Russia, allied efforts to tackle sanctions evasion and the top countries continuing to support Russia’s military despite the restrictions: China, Iran, North Korea and Belarus. The 24-page report notes that the “focus” of the Group of 7 countries, along with the EU, has recently shifted to “preventing sanctions evasion and closing any remaining loopholes in the existing regime,” although Russia continues to find workarounds. The report said “questions remain” over “the effectiveness of those sanctions as Russia has sought alternative markets and established new trade routes and methods for circumvention.”
After U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan last week said the Biden administration is preparing new sanctions against Chinese entities, including possibly financial institutions, for supporting Russia's military, China said it “firmly rejects all kinds of illicit unilateral sanctions” that the U.S. may be considering.