The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 13 advanced several bills that would revise U.S. export control regulations and procedures for dual-use technology.

Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., have introduced legislation to increase the frequency and quality of information that Congress receives about U.S. investment in China.

The Biden administration’s recent decision to remove China’s Institute of Forensic Science (IFS) from the Entity List has led the Chinese government to become more helpful, at least initially, in stemming the flow of illegal fentanyl drugs to the U.S., Bureau of Industry and Security officials said.

Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, is urging Congress to revisit legislation that would require U.S. firms to report outbound investments that could threaten American national security.

Four House Democrats introduced a bill aimed at curbing the flow of U.S. firearms to drug cartels, gangs and other violent groups in the Caribbean and Latin America.

A bipartisan group of four senators introduced a bill that would impose sanctions on foreign banks and foreign cryptocurrency firms that do business with terrorist organizations such as Hamas.

A group of Senate Republicans asked the Biden administration for a briefing on how Iran is spending the billions of dollars it has received through recent U.S. sanctions waivers.

The Biden administration should sanction Russian weapons manufacturer JSC Alabuga, which is receiving help from Iran to produce its own version of Iran’s Shahed-136 kamikaze drone, known as the Geran-2, on Russian soil, according to Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.

A conference report on the 2024 defense spending bill released this week by House and Senate negotiators said the legislation won’t include a polarizing measure that could have led to new guardrails around U.S. outbound investments into China. The leaders of the Senate and House Armed Services committees ultimately decided to leave out the provision in the compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act despite the fact that it passed as part of Senate’s version of the NDAA in July (see 2307280052).

Seventeen senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are asking the U.S. trade representative to reach "an expedited agreement with the European Union" so that tariffs don't return on exported whiskey Jan. 1. That tariff would be 50% under the schedule the EU imposed as retaliation for the Section 232 tariffs on European steel and aluminum exports.