The trade imbalance at U.S. ports has widened in recent months, as heavy congestion from record imports has continued to cause issues for U.S. exporters, the Federal Maritime Commission’s Bureau of Trade Analysis said this week. As U.S. consumer demand picks up for the holidays, the BTA suggested exporters are seeing more delays and less opportunities to ship their goods.
Ian Cohen
Ian Cohen, Deputy Managing Editor, is a reporter with Export Compliance Daily and its sister publications International Trade Today and Trade Law Daily, where he covers export controls, sanctions and international trade issues. He previously worked as a local government reporter in South Florida. Ian graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Florida in 2017 and lives in Washington, D.C. He joined the staff of Warren Communications News in 2019.
The Bureau of Industry and Security needs to better enforce its foreign direct product (FDP) rule, which is not adequately stopping Huawei and other Chinese companies from acquiring certain sensitive U.S.-produced technology, eight Republican senators said in a Nov. 15 letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. The senators said Commerce’s “lax enforcement” of the rule has encouraged other technology firms to sell to companies on the Entity List, said the lawmakers, who all serve on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
The Senate is “likely” to vote on the annual defense policy bill this week, which could include the Senate-passed U.S. Innovation and Competition Act of 2021, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. In a Nov. 14 letter to lawmakers, Schumer said “there seems to be fairly broad” bipartisan support for adding USICA to the National Defense Authorization Act, which would allow a USICA negotiation with the House “to be completed alongside” the NDAA before the end of the year. The House plans to write its own version of USICA.
The U.S. should closely review the planned acquisition of Ports America by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which would cede U.S. control over the largest terminal operator in North America, the Federal Maritime Commission said in a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The acquisition would allow minority investor CPP Investments to hold “exclusive interest in a strategic United States enterprise,” the FMC said, and could allow Canada to increase diversion of U.S.-bound cargo through Canadian ports.
The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach postponed until next week consideration of a new surcharge meant to incentivize the movement of dwelling containers, the two California ports announced Nov. 15. The ports originally said they would begin imposing the fee Nov. 15 (see 2111030027) but pushed the start date to Nov. 22 because of the “significant improvement in clearing import containers from our docks in recent weeks,” Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control last week issued the first designations under the recently established Ethiopian and Eritrean sanctions regime (see 2109170036), targeting four entities and two people for contributing to the two countries' ongoing conflict. OFAC also issued a general license authorizing certain transactions with two of the sanctioned entities and published two new frequently asked questions.
The Treasury Department is considering extending the deadline by which three U.S. allies must meet certain criteria to remain eligible for a foreign investment review exemption, the agency said last week. Treasury’s proposed rule would extend the deadline for one year to give Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom more time to cement their positions as excepted foreign states and excepted real estate foreign states, which excludes them from certain screening requirements by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. Comments on the proposal are due Dec. 15.
Industry lawyers are preparing for a surge in enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (see 2107210058) following a wave of recently added enforcement officials and promises by the Biden administration to aggressively target anti-corruption. Lawyers also said new policies by the Department of Justice may lead to an increase in penalty amounts and change how companies decide whether to self-report.
A United Arab Emirates bank violated the U.S.’s now-repealed Sudanese Sanctions Regulations when it illegally processed more than 1,700 payments for Sudanese banks, the Office of Foreign Assets Control said Nov. 9. The bank, Mashreqbank psc, was issued a “finding of violation” by OFAC instead of a fine, partly because the bank voluntarily entered into a “retroactive statute of limitations waiver agreement,” which allowed OFAC to charge Mashreq with the sanctions violations.
The Bureau of Industry and Security fined a Pennsylvania-based scientific equipment manufacturer $80,000 for illegally exporting goods to Huawei and HiSilicon Technologies in 2019, according to a Nov. 8 enforcement order. The company, SP Industries, exported more than $170,000 worth of goods to the Chinese technology companies just after they were added to the Entity List (see 1905160072).