Jamieson Greer, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, endorsed U.S. outbound investment restrictions against China during a Senate Finance Committee hearing Feb. 6.
The Bureau of Industry and Security revoked the export privileges of a Florida-based freight forwarding company, the company’s owner and five other businesses for illegally shipping export controlled items to Russia as recently as last year, according to a BIS temporary denial order and court documents.
A new national security memorandum signed this week by President Donald Trump orders U.S. agencies to pursue a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran to stop the country from developing nuclear weapons and supporting terrorism (see 2502040073). It calls on the U.S. to impose new sanctions against the country while stepping up enforcement and possibly revoke any general license or guidance document that gives “Iran or any of its terror proxies any degree of economic or financial relief.”
The Senate Commerce Committee voted, 16-12, Feb. 5 to advance President Donald Trump’s choice of Howard Lutnick to be commerce secretary, sending the nomination to the full Senate for its consideration. The vote came days after Lutnick promised to scrutinize U.S. export controls on advanced artificial intelligence chips, telling lawmakers in recently published comments that a review of the restrictions will be “a top priority” if he’s confirmed.
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The U.K. should mirror the enforcement practices of U.S. agencies by publicizing the details of sanctions and export control penalties, which would help British companies better comply with trade restrictions, industry officials and a researcher told U.K. lawmakers this week. The U.K. should sharply raise penalties on businesses that violate sanctions to convince industry to invest more heavily in trade compliance, the researcher said.
Companies should expect Trump administration to take an increasingly aggressive stance on China-related inbound and outbound investment restrictions, especially because of the makeup of President Donald Trump’s team and key Cabinet officials, a former Treasury Department official and trade consultant said.
U.S. export controls are increasingly trending toward unilateral, extraterritorial restrictions as opposed to multilateral ones, and that could continue under the administration of President Donald Trump, said Jeannette Chu, vice president for national security policy at the National Foreign Trade Council.
Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., urged the Commerce Department Feb. 3 to strengthen export controls following the recent “breakthrough development” of an advanced artificial intelligence model by Chinese startup DeepSeek.
The European Commission last week published a first-of-its-kind report on dual-use export control licensing patterns that it says will give companies, governments and the public a “better understanding of how export controls are applied” within the bloc.