The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. will maintain its focus on Chinese investment, prioritize enforcement and continue to tweak its jurisdiction under the Joe Biden administration (see 2009170017 and 2010270050), trade lawyers said. CFIUS also will likely continue to see an increase in filings, the lawyers said.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is working on several new proposed rules for emerging technologies and is still sifting through industry comments on potential controls for surveillance technologies, the agency said in its 2020 report to Congress this month. Along with its work on emerging technologies last year, the agency said it nearly doubled its civil penalties from 2019, processed about 3,000 more export license applications, and met with a range of trading partners and multilateral export regimes to discuss improvements to export controls.
The State Department updated its review policy for approving certain exports of precision-guided weapons to better ensure the items will not be used to harm civilians or abuse human rights. The change will affect license application reviews for direct commercial sales (DCS) of U.S. precision-guided munitions (PGM), the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls said this week, which will better align the review policy for DCS with the agency’s Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program.
The U.S. will no longer impose a presumption of denial policy for export license applications for Sudan but will still limit which export license exceptions can be used for those exports, the Bureau of Industry and Security said in a Jan. 19 guidance. The guidance, issued less than a week after BIS amended Sudan’s status to loosen certain restrictions in the Export Administration Regulations (see 2101140018), also covered how BIS will control exports of aircraft, encrypted telecommunication items and anti-terrorism controlled items.
The State Department expanded the scope of its sanctions authorities on Iran’s metals sector (see 1905080065) by identifying 15 materials used in the country’s nuclear, military and ballistic missile programs, a Jan. 15 news release said. The agency said people or companies that “knowingly transfer” the materials are now sanctionable under the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act. The State Department also continued its sanctions authority targeting Iran’s construction sector after determining that the U.S.-sanctioned Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps still controls the sector.
The U.S. should increase efforts to counter China’s unfair trading practices and human rights violations and work closer with allies on trade restrictions, two of President-elect Joe Biden’s Cabinet nominees told Congress. Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary nominee, and Avril Haines, the nominee for the director of national intelligence, both said the incoming administration will continue to pressure China on unfair subsidies, intellectual property theft and other trade issues.
The Defense Department on Jan. 14 released another list of Chinese companies with ties to the country’s military. The latest tranche includes nine companies, including businesses operating in the semiconductor, technology and aviation sectors. The companies will be subject to certain investment bans under an executive order President Donald Trump issued in November (see 2011130026). The latest list follows the release of several similar lists last year (see 2008300001, 2006250024 and 2012040008).
Congress and the incoming administration should strengthen and maintain a range of export controls and sanctions to prevent China from acquiring sensitive U.S. technologies and items used for repression, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China said in its 2020 annual report. The report and an executive summary, issued Jan. 14, urge the U.S. to continue to dedicate resources to restrict exports to China in order to prevent human rights violations.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is experiencing significant delays to its Huawei licensing decisions due to telework rules and the COVID-19 pandemic, a BIS official said. Communication between agencies has been hampered, the official said, leading to lengthy license adjudications and a backlog of applications.
The Bureau of Industry and Security added one Chinese entity to its Entity List, another to its Military End User List and removed two Russian entities from the MEU List, the agency said in a final rule. BIS added China National Offshore Oil Corporation Ltd. (CNOOC) to its Entity List for its involvement with China’s militarization of the South China Sea and designated Beijing Skyrizon Aviation Industry Investment Co., Ltd. because of its ties to China’s military. The changes are effective Jan. 14.