The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Aug. 6 issued a set of Venezuela-related frequently asked questions, amended 12 general licenses, created 13 new general licenses and released a Venezuela sanctions guidance detailing which types of transactions are authorized between U.S. companies and Venezuela. The moves were in coordination with President Donald Trump’s Aug. 5 executive order that expanded certain sanctions on Venezuela.
The Commerce Department plans to issue decisions on Huawei-related export license applications “within the next few weeks,” Secretary Wilbur Ross said July 23 on Bloomberg Television. Ross said Commerce has received about 50 applications from 35 companies. “We’re processing them as quickly as we responsibly can,” he said.
The Commerce Department’s presumption of denial for Huawei-related export licenses may no longer apply, Akin Gump lawyers said during a July 18 webinar.
Commerce plans to eliminate license exceptions for civil end-users from the Export Administration Regulations, according to an alert from Akin Gump. Commerce did not say when the changes would take effect, the alert said, but U.S. companies should “prepare for the possibility that currently exempted activities may soon require specific licenses” from the Bureau of Industry and Security. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs recently completed a review of the changes, according to a notice on the OIRA website.
Three trade experts discussing the role of technology in the U.S.-China trade war were split over how and when the two nations will reach a trade deal, with two saying they expect a deal soon and one saying China is willing to wait until a potentially new administration in 2020. But the experts, speaking July 18 during a panel at the Brookings Institution, agreed on one point: If there is a deal, the ban on Huawei Technologies will be lifted.
Commerce denied export privileges for two Iranian nationals and their company after they tried to export a $15,000 micro drill press from the U.S. to Iran, Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security said in a July 8 denied export order. Commerce also fined them $300,000 for trying to violate the Export Administration Regulations and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat who's also running for president, has asked an ethics official in the Commerce Department to examine whether the head of the International Trade Administration and the acting undersecretary for Industry and Security have ethical conflicts in the steel and aluminum Section 232 exclusion process. Both ITA and the Bureau of Industry and Security are responsible for evaluating the exclusion requests, and BIS officials ultimately grant or reject the requests.
Plans to reorganize International Traffic in Arms Regulations are ongoing despite what has been a lengthy legal review of the draft rules, a Directorate of Defense Trade Controls official said while speaking July 9 at the Bureau of Industry and Security annual export controls conference. Through a "series of rules we are trying to make the content of the ITAR more linear and more discernable," said Rob Hart, regulatory and multilateral affairs division chief in the Office of Defense Trade Controls Policy.
The U.S. is working with Hong Kong to increase audits of imports and exports, said Kevin Kurland, director of Commerce’s Office of Enforcement Analysis, at the Bureau of Industry and Security annual export controls conference July 10. Kurland said the cooperation has led to a “record number of detentions” in the past year as both sides have more strictly enforced and audited export and import controls. “We’re working with them,” Kurland said, adding that Commerce wants to make sure “our systems are complementary.”
The House passed on voice votes July 11 three amendments aimed at addressing concerns about Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers Huawei and ZTE for inclusion in the chamber's version of the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 2500). One, led by Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., would impose conditions for the Department of Commerce to be able to lift the Bureau of Industry and Security's addition of Huawei to its Entity List that would impose export restrictions on the company, including a finding that Huawei and its executives haven't violated U.S. or United Nations sanctions and haven't engaged in theft of U.S. intellectual property during the preceding five years. Acting Commerce Undersecretary for Industry and Security Nazak Nikakhtar said on July 9 the department is reviewing export license applications to sell to Huawei in order to “mitigate as much of the negative impacts of the entity listing as possible” and hopes to have decisions “soon” (see 1907090068).