Sens. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., urged the Biden administration Dec. 19 to give China’s ByteDance more time to comply with the law that requires the company to divest TikTok by Jan. 19 or face a U.S. ban on the popular social media application.
Marc Selinger
Marc Selinger, Assistant Editor, is the congressional reporter for Export Compliance Daily, which he joined in December 2023. He previously wrote for a variety of defense publications, highlights of which included covering the Paris and Farnborough (UK) air shows and touring the Israeli defense industry. His first full-time journalism job involved reporting on local government, schools and police news for a community newspaper in Michigan. He is on X at @marcselinger and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-selinger-315089173/.
Although Congress last week shelved a compromise to restrict outbound investment in China, two key lawmakers said they believe the legislation or something similar could become law next year.
A bipartisan group of six senators urged the Biden administration Dec. 17 to sanction foreign entities involved in illegally smuggling gold from Sudan to the United Arab Emirates and other countries.
The Biden administration said this week it has received assurances that the United Arab Emirates has ended weapons transfers to Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia group, meeting a key demand of U.S. lawmakers who had threatened to oppose an arms sale to the UAE over its RSF support.
The Bureau of Industry and Security should increase its enforcement of semiconductor export controls to prevent American-made computing chips from ending up in Russian weapons and Chinese artificial intelligence systems, the Democratic majority staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said in a new report released this week.
The House Select Committee on China’s fentanyl policy working group unveiled three bipartisan bills Dec. 17 to counter China’s role as the world’s leading supplier of precursor chemicals for fentanyl.
The outbound investment legislation that lawmakers agreed Dec. 17 to include in a newly unveiled continuing resolution (CR) (see 2412170063) would expand upon the Biden administration’s August 2023 executive order (see 2308090066) by covering more artificial intelligence models and by adding hypersonic and related aerospace technologies.
Several lawmakers have urged the Biden administration to ease sanctions on Syria in light of the overthrow of the Assad regime by rebel forces.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said Dec. 17 that lawmakers have forged a compromise on legislation to restrict U.S. outbound investment in China.
The Biden administration has no plans to alter its policy toward Cuba during its final weeks in office, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a congressional panel last week.