Considerations surrounding the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. “should be baked into deal planning as early as possible,” especially as CFIUS scrutiny on Chinese investments is “not expected to ease any time soon,” Kilpatrick Townsend said in a June client alert. The firm said compliance officers whose company is pondering foreign investment from China need “to involve your regulatory teams as soon as possible” so the company can “identify the challenges likely to surface during the CFIUS process.”
Exports to China
China imposed quarantine requirements on edible peas and lentils from Kazakhstan and heat-treated beef from Pakistan, the General Administration of Customs said in two notices, according to an unofficial translation.
The Bureau of Industry and Security added 43 entities to the Entity List this week, including companies conducting various activities that either support China’s military or allow the government to “carry out human rights abuses.” Other entities were added for supporting Pakistan’s ballistic missile program or other weapons capabilities.
The Bureau of Industry and Security added 43 entities in China, Kenya, Laos, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and the U.K. to the Entity List for either supporting China’s military, supporting the government's human rights abuses or supporting Pakistan’s weapons capabilities. The additions, outlined in a final rule effective June 12, impose license requirements for all items subject to the Export Administration Regulations. The agency also removed one entity from the list.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week advanced a bipartisan bill that would require the administration to form a sanctions strategy that would be triggered if China invades Taiwan. The Taiwan Protection and National Resilience Act, reintroduced in March (see 2303300024), would require the several Cabinet agencies to submit a report to Congress describing a “comprehensive sanctions strategy” that the U.S and allies could adopt in response to an invasion. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., one of the authors of the bill, said Congress “must continue to closely monitor” China’s “hostile acts against our democratic ally and remain firm in our strategy to deter any aggression against Taiwan.”
The U.K. plans to update its export control regime to better restrict sensitive technology transfers and streamline flows of defense goods to close allies, the country said in a joint declaration with the U.S. released last week. The U.K. also said it’s planning to study how it can “respond effectively” to risks posed by outbound investments as the U.S. prepares to launch its own outbound screening mechanism (see 2305310075).
Countries in the Five Eyes Alliance, plus Japan, have issued a joint declaration on non-market practices and trade related economic coercion that they say "undermine the functioning of and confidence in the rules-based multilateral trading system by distorting trade, investment, and competition and harming relations between countries."
Just after the administration asked the International Trade Commission to examine the emissions intensity of the steel and aluminum sectors, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the Senate to tell the Energy Department to conduct a comprehensive study of the emissions from the production of aluminum, cement, iron and steel, plastic, and products made from all those materials, fertilizer, glass, lithium-ion batteries, paper and pulp, solar panels and cells, wind turbines, crude oil, refined oil products, natural gas, hydrogen, refined critical minerals and uranium.
China imposed inspection and quarantine requirements for certain wild aquatic products from Kazakhstan on June 2, the General Administration of Customs announced, according to an unofficial translation. The requirements apply to aquatic resources and their canned products that live freely in natural waters, excluding live aquatic animals and reproductive materials of aquatic animals and plants, along with appendices of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
Argentina, Brazil and Canada recently announced antidumping and countervailing duty actions and decisions on certain products from mainland China, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported June 8.