Members of Congress who spoke during the House Agriculture Committee's March 20 hearing on China highlighted several proposals to restrict the communist country’s increasing acquisition of American agricultural land.
Exports to China
Although the EU is trying to reform its approach to export controls and other economic security issues, there still are loopholes in the bloc’s rules that allow technology to be illegally exported to China and elsewhere, EU policy experts said this week.
Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., marked National Agriculture Day on March 19 by urging Congress to pass a bill that would prohibit foreign nationals associated with the Chinese government from buying American farmland.
The Bureau of Industry and Security recently suspended the export privileges of 10 people for illegally exporting either weapons, ammunition or sensitive documents to Russia, China, Haiti or Mexico.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control last week sanctioned Marshall Islands-registered shipping company Vishnu Inc. and its ship, the Lady Sofia, for their involvement in illegally shipping Iranian commodities to China. OFAC said the vessel recently transferred cargo while at sea to another sanctioned ship, the Mehle, which is currently traveling to China with the Iranian goods.
If the Senate Commerce Committee takes up a House-passed bill that would ban TikTok if China’s ByteDance does not divest itself of the popular social media application, committee members probably will propose “multiple amendments” to improve the legislation, the panel’s top Republican said last week.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticized the U.S. House of Representatives’ March 13 passage of a bill to require China’s ByteDance to divest itself of social media application TikTok (see 2403130051), saying the vote falls on the “wrong side of the principles of fair competition and international trade rules.”
China said it has “expressed great concern” with the EU over a decision by the bloc earlier this month to begin customs registration for Chinese electric vehicle imports, setting them up to face retroactive tariffs if an ongoing EU investigation concludes they benefited from unfair subsidies.
Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., introduced a bill March 13 that would impose financial sanctions on people or groups that engage in anti-U.S. "political warfare," such as spreading propaganda, on behalf of a foreign government, especially China’s.
The U.S. announced new export controls against Nicaragua this week in response to human rights abuses by the country's government and its support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The measures, outlined in two final rules effective March 15, will put in place stronger Commerce Department export licensing requirements for Nicaragua and add the country to a list of nations maintained by the State Department that generally don’t receive license approvals for controlled defense items.