Officials from South Korea, Japan and the Biden administration met in Hawaii, the White House said Feb. 28, and talked about how to increase supply chain resilience "in semiconductors, batteries, and critical minerals." The officials also talked about how to coordinate on measures to protect sensitive technologies, the readout said.
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The Bureau of Industry and Security is considering new export controls on certain machinery or lab equipment used by Chinese suppliers of precursor chemicals, which are used to produce fentanyl. BIS Undersecretary Alan Estevez, speaking during a Feb. 28 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, said the agency is working with the Drug Enforcement Administration “to assess whether we can put restrictions” on those items. “So we're doing that kind of assessment, working both on the enforcement and my export administration side to see what we can do to crack down on that,” he said. Estevez was responding to a question from Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., who asked how the administration is working to “pressure” China to “combat financial flows from illicit fentanyl.”
The Biden administration should be doing more to harmonize its export controls and sanctions lists to more effectively penalize foreign companies that should be subject to strict trade restrictions, lawmakers said this week. Several Republicans suggested they plan to pursue legislation to mandate that the Bureau of Industry and Security’s Entity List be aligned with sanctions lists maintained by the Treasury Department, and at least one lawmaker said BIS should already have taken steps to formally do so.
Global law firm Akerman created a new Economic Sanctions and Export Controls Practice team. The group will work to assess "the scope and impact of sanctions and export controls" and design compliance programs, while also "litigating prohibited persons designations, freeing frozen assets, responding to audits, and obtaining licenses," it said Feb. 24.
The U.K. removed Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi from its Libya sanctions regime, in a Feb. 24 notice. Al-Mahmoudi is the former prime minister of Libya in Col. Moammar Gadhafi's government. The Tunisian government extradited him to Libyan authorities in 2012, and he was released in 2019 for health reasons.
The EU adopted its 10th sanctions package on Russia, the European Council announced. The restrictions include imposing a travel ban and asset freeze on another 87 individuals and 34 entities, as well as various trade sanctions, including additional export bans on critical technology and industrial goods.
Myron Brilliant, who leads the international division at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, asked Ambassador Nicholas Burns where the economic relationship with China is heading -- it's a trillion dollars worth of business, Brilliant noted, even with American businesses' concerns about discriminatory regulations and the effects of state-owned enterprises.
Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi, a citizen of Lebanon and Belgium, and Talal Chahine, a Lebanese citizen, were charged as part of a conspiracy to launder money, cause U.S. citizens to conduct illegal transactions with a Specially Designated Global Terrorist and conduct illegal transactions with a sanctioned terrorist, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York announced Feb. 24. Each charge carries the possible punishment of up to 20 years in prison.
Canada this week sanctioned 12 senior Iranian military and law enforcement officials who “have participated in gross and systematic human rights violations.” The designations target several members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Law Enforcement Forces, including Seyeh Sadegh Hosseini, an IRGC general, and Rahim Jahanbakhsh, an LEF second brigadier general. Canada said the Iranian government “continues to brutally oppress its people and to deny them their fundamental rights and freedoms.”