Jacob Kopnick

While just two weeks into the Biden administration, any sense of urgency needed to bring the U.S. back into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to dismantle Iran's ability to create a nuclear weapon is not being felt from either the Americans or Europeans. Speaking at a Feb. 3 Chatham House event on the future of the JCPOA, Middle East experts Dalia Dassa Kaye and Azadeh Zamirirad from the Wilson Center and the Middle East and Africa Division, SWP Berlin, respectively, both shared the view of a lack of urgency amid high expectations for the new U.S. president to lead the U.S. to rejoin the agreement.

Detention and demurrage disruptions are causing devastating damage to U.S. intermodal carriers and are placing large burdens on the shipping and transportation industry, the Harbor Trucking Association said in a new report. The association, which represents U.S. drayage carriers serving West Coast ports, and TradeLanes, a technology company focused on streamlining global commodity trade, surveyed HTA members and found that more than half reported critical negative effects on their business from the detention and demurrage costs. Detention and demurrage is common in the industry as well, with 64% of respondents saying that they incur them on more than 15% of their containers with the average price around $200 per container. Once the charges are levied, governmental relief is rarely given, with 80% of respondents saying they got charges reduced 0-25% of the time. The charges cost more than money, evidenced by the majority of respondents saying the invoices take at least 45 minutes to complete.

The United Kingdom formally applied to start negotiations on its accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) -- an 11-member trade partnership that represents more than 9 trillion euros in economic activity. The inclusion of the U.K. would mark the bloc's first foray beyond the Pacific and expand CPTPP's proportion of global GDP to 16%.

The Wisconsin Farmers Union is calling on the Biden administration to drop the U.S.'s first USMCA dispute -- a case on Canadian tariff rate quotas -- the group announced in a blog post. WFU said that the demands of the largest dairy companies to tackle Canada's supply management policies on dairy products shouldn't come before needs of small farmers and fair market prices.

Electronic Export Information requirements for Puerto Rico treat the territory like a foreign country, unnecessarily burden U.S. shippers and go against the wishes of the Puerto Rican people and government, said Mike Mullen, executive director of the Express Association of America. Speaking on a Jan. 28 call hosted by a Commerce Department advisory committee, Mullen said the EAA spoke with a member of President Joe Biden's transition team in early January about eliminating the filing requirements.

As the European Union's vaccination effort lags behind other developed nations', the bloc threatens to implement export controls on vaccines made inside the EU to increase the number of doses available for its citizens. “In the future, all companies producing vaccines against COVID-19 in the EU will have to provide early notification whenever they want to export vaccines to third countries,” European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides said in a news release Jan. 25.

Electronics industry association SEMI called for industry input on a review of Trump administration export control policies, in a Jan. 25 letter to secretary of commerce nominee Gina Raimondo. The trade group said the prior administration made drastic changes to export control regulations without allowing enough industry input, and said the new administration should formally hear industry concerns.

Clifford Chance hired international trade regulatory and national security expert Renee Latour as a partner at its Washington office, the firm announced in a news release Jan. 19. Latour was previously at Greenberg Traurig. She has 15 years of experience in matters concerning U.S. trade controls and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.

President Joe Biden recently ordered a review of all U.S. and multilateral financial and economic sanctions to see if they are hindering the COVID-19 pandemic response. The Jan. 21 executive order calls on the secretaries of the State, Treasury and Commerce departments, with input from the Department of Health and Human Services secretary and the U.S. Agency for International Development administrator, to conduct the review and provide recommendations on the state of these sanctions to the national security adviser and COVID-19 response coordinator. This sanctions-review provision is part of a broader order on reestablishing American leadership in the global pandemic response and reorienting the U.S.'s national security priorities to combat COVID-19.

No short-term action should be expected on sanctions, export controls or foreign investment scrutiny, as President Joe Biden takes over U.S. trade policy following President Donald Trump's thorough shake-up of traditional policy, lawyers said on a Thompson Hine webinar Jan. 19. The Trump administration made significant policy changes in all three of these areas, and it appears Biden will shy away from any immediate course reversal due to a stated desire to focus initially on domestic concerns and to use Trump measures as a leverage point in future negotiations, lawyer David Schwartz of Thompson Hine said. The only difference the lawyers predict for the Biden administration will be in the general approach to these issues, with a special emphasis on a more measured tone, they said. For instance, while the sanctions themselves may stay in place, Biden will shift from dubbing the White House's approach to Iran as a “maximum pressure” campaign to one that applies “compliance pressure,” Schwartz said. He also predicts a more measured use of the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List to promote multilateral cooperation.