Canada will soon impose a 100% import tariff on all Chinese-made electric vehicles and a 25% tariff on certain Chinese steel and aluminum products, moves that will protect its auto industry from what it said are Beijing’s “unfair, non-market policies and practices.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security should clarify whether new export controls aimed at preventing China from obtaining advanced computing chips apply to artifical intelligence-capable central processing units (CPUs), researchers with Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology said.
The Bureau of Industry and Security reached a $44,750 settlement with Streamlight, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based manufacturer of portable lighting products, after BIS said the firm violated the Export Administration Regulations’ antiboycott provisions. Streamlight committed the antiboycott violations by certifying to a freight forwarder -- as it prepared for a Bahrain trade show -- that its goods didn’t come from Israel.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is expanding the scope of its Russia/Belarus-related Foreign-Direct Product rule and adding new export controls on certain computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools-related software, the agency said last week. The FDP rule changes, effective Aug. 27, allow BIS to “more aggressively target” third-country companies procuring controlled goods that are indirectly sent to Russia, BIS said, while the CNC machine tool controls, effective Sept. 16, will prevent those tools in Russia and Belarus from receiving certain software updates.
New guidance issued last week by the Bureau of Industry and Security outlines how exporters should use contractual clauses in their sales contracts to prevent Russia-related trade violations, including how BIS views the EU’s requirement for a “no-Russia” clause. The agency also warned foreign corporate service providers about letting “bad actors” use rented addresses for billing or shipping, which they can use to evade detection when violating export controls.
Nearly a quarter of the 123 new entries the Bureau of Industry and Security will add to its Entity List this week are Chinese suppliers that the agency named in private red-flag letters to U.S. companies earlier this year.
Although export control reforms by the U.S., Australia and the U.K. could exempt about three-quarters of defense trade between the countries and reduce compliance costs for industry, more updates are needed to remove lingering licensing barriers and address structural challenges posed by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, researchers said this week.
Most EU member states missed a July deadline to implement the EU’s new corporate sustainability reporting rules into national law, causing uncertainty for businesses that want to ready their compliance procedures before the rules take effect beginning next year, a major European law firm said.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin, D-Md., who has been working for months to develop a major China bill (see 2402010067 and 2406130071), said Aug. 20 that parts of the legislation could end up in the FY 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The Treasury Department should make sure its investment screening regulations don’t unfairly discriminate against foreigners and should do more to curb a rise in “xenophobic” U.S. state and federal land laws, nonprofits told the agency and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. They criticized several bills that could place new investment restrictions on people from “countries of concern,” including China and Iran, and said they’re concerned CFIUS may not have the resources to manage its expanding jurisdiction.