The U.S. shouldn’t scrap its Science and Technology Agreement (STA) with China when it expires later this month, and should instead update the deal to better address areas for cooperation around critical technologies, former U.S. officials and technology policy experts said this week. But they also acknowledged that continuing the agreement could be challenging, particularly because of rising tensions between the two sides along with a congressional push to restrict more American technology from being shared with Beijing.
A group of European countries not in the EU aligned with recent sanctions decisions from the European Council under the lists of parties subject to restrictions to combat terrorism and threatening the sovereignty of Ukraine, along with the Syria sanctions regime.
The European Council on Aug. 3 added another 38 individuals and three entities to its Belarus sanctions regime, further extending export bans to cover goods for the firearms, aviation and space industry. The listings include "penitentiary officials responsible for the torture and ill-treatment of detainees," members of the judiciary, cogs of civil society and journalists, the council said.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a case against a United Arab Emirates cigarette filter and tear tape manufacturer following a more than $660,000 settlement agreement with the government for violating U.S. sanctions against North Korea . Essentra FZE Company Limited exported cigarette filter rods to North Korea and did not voluntarily disclose the violations, which the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control said constituted an egregious case (U.S. v. Essentra FZE Company, Dist. D.C. # 20-112).
Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., one of the shrinking number of members of Congress who advocate for engaging with China rather than punishing it, recently published a white paper of his views on how to manage competition with China, how to use both offensive and defensive measures to compete with China, how to improve U.S. governance and competitiveness, and how to identify areas of cooperation.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a final rule replacing its Mali Sanctions Regulations, which the agency had published in “abbreviated form” in 2020. The amended regulations, effective Aug. 7, implement a 2019 executive order that authorized sanctions against people and entities involved in human rights abuses and other sanctionable activities in the country. OFAC said it’s providing “a more comprehensive set of regulations, including additional interpretive and definitional guidance, general licenses, and other regulatory provisions.”
The Office of Foreign Assets Control added 2,275 parties to its Specially Designated Nationals List last year, more than double the number it added to the list in 2021, the Center for a New American Security said in its Sanctions by the Numbers blog last week. The think tank said sanctions against Russia in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine accounted for 1,698 of the 2,275 total designations. The remaining 577 additions to the SDN List would have been “comparable” to past years, adding that “significant” changes in the number of designations from one year to the next is “usually due to current events rather than changes in the underlying sanctions policy.”
The U.S. last week said it isn’t renewing a June general license that authorized certain transactions with two Myanmar banks. The State Department on Aug. 4 said it plans to let the license -- which covered U.S.-sanctioned Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank, Myanma Foreign Trade Bank and their subsidiaries -- expire Aug. 5 at 12:01 am. “We will pursue enforcement actions as appropriate,” the agency said.
The U.S. needs to better protect agricultural technology from Chinese theft and push Beijing to reduce tariffs on U.S. crops, American farmers told lawmakers last week. Speaking during a panel in Iowa organized by the House Select Committee on China, at least one farmer said U.S. trade policy should focus more on securing free trade deals, which would help exporters become less reliant on China.
Amendments to the Ukrainian government's sanctions legislation came into effect July 29, according to an unofficial translation. Under the alterations, the government will establish a register of sanctioned individuals and entities that includes a list of the reasons for their addition and the type of sanctions to which they are subject. The amendments also extend the deadlines for the High Anti-Corruption Court to consider appeals of asset freezes, giving the court up to 30 days after receiving the claim to consider the appeals.