The countries behind INSTEX, the European payment system designed to allow countries to trade with Iran despite U.S. sanctions (see 1907010057 and 1905300035), said they will dissolve the system because of hurdles created by Iran. In a March 9 joint statement, Germany, France and the U.K. said Iran agreed only to a “single transaction” (see 2004010016) and “consistently and deliberately blocked other proposals for transactions.”
The U.S should build a new international technology task force to increase technology trade cooperation with allies, the German Marshall Fund said in a report this week. The report, authored by GMF technology policy experts Karen Kornbluh and Julia Trehu, said the task force could focus on semiconductors, green technologies and critical minerals, and would allow members to share supply chain data and “provide a venue for countries to reconcile export controls.”
The U.S. this week released a timeline for sharing sensitive nuclear submarine technology with Australia, saying the country will be operating nuclear-powered submarines before the end of the 2030s. The Biden administration also said it’s considering revising its defense export controls to allow it to more easily share controlled technologies with allies, including within the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) partnership.
The U.K. amended or corrected 21 entries under its Russia sanctions regime in a March 10 notice. Among those whose entries the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation amended are Oleg Evtushenko, Rostec's management board member; Vitaly Markelov, deputy-chairman of Gazprom's management board; Yuri Olenin, Rosatom management board member; Roman Pakhomov, Aeroflot-Russian Airline director; Andrei Petrov, Rosatom management board member; Alexander Prokopiev, Russia State Duma member. OFSI also made corrections to the listings for 12 individuals and two entities, the Almaz-Antey Air and Space Defense Corp. and Sobol.
Iranian national Mehdi Khoshghadam violated U.S. export controls by illegally shipping electrical cables and connectors from the U.S. through Hong Kong and to Iran, DOJ said March 9. Khoshghadam was charged with one count of conspiracy, one count of violating of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. The indictment also seeks to forfeit all “proceeds” earned by Khoshghadam from the illegal exports.
President Joe Biden last week extended for one year beyond March 15 a national emergency that authorizes certain sanctions related to Iran. The White House said Iran continues to participate in the "proliferation and development of missiles and other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities," support terrorist groups and otherwise threaten U.S. national security.
The U.N. Security Council and the U.K. last week removed two Iraq-related entries from their sanctions lists. The update removes the entries for Ayad Futayyih Khalifa Al-Rawi and Humam Abd-al-Khaliq Abd-al-Ghafur.
The U.S. and India last week launched the India-U.S. Strategic Trade Dialogue to discuss “export controls, explore ways of enhancing high technology commerce, and facilitate technology transfer between countries,” the Commerce Department said. The effort will be led on the U.S. side by the Bureau of Industry and Security, Secretary Gina Raimondo said. “This is exciting because it’s an official government-to-government arrangement where we’re going to deepen our engagement with India, specifically around the area of aligning our export controls and sharing our information with one another.”
The U.S. is planning more export restrictions on semiconductor manufacturing items destined to China and could publish them as early as next month, Bloomberg reported March 10. The new restrictions could “double the number of machines” that require export licenses, the report said, placing new controls on Applied Materials and other chip equipment makers. The Biden administration plans to coordinate the new restrictions with the Netherlands and Japan, but “doesn’t plan to water down its plans if those other nations adopt weaker guidelines,” the report said.
U.S. export controls against China could cause the country to dominate the global industry for “lower-capability” chip technologies, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in its annual threat assessment released last week. The DNI also warned that China, which is quickly building new chip factories, remains the “top threat to U.S. technological competitiveness.”