The Republican leaders of the House and Senate foreign relations committees criticized the Biden administration's new Conventional Arms Transfer policies for failing to prioritize the economic competitiveness of U.S. defense companies. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said the new policy “reflects this administration’s fundamental misunderstanding of the challenges we and our allies and partners are facing to obtain the weapons we need to keep our country safe and to deter aggression around the world.” They also said the new policy is missing “transparent criteria” for how the administration evaluates arms transfers.
A bipartisan group of House members introduced a bill this week that could strengthen the U.S. ability to respond to economic coercion by foreign countries. The bill, which was introduced in the Senate earlier this month (see 2302080068), would allow the president to lower duties on non-import-sensitive goods made by a country that lost exports due to coercive actions; increase duties on imports from the "foreign adversary" committing the coercion; and allow the U.S. to more easily facilitate trade, including exports, with the coerced parties.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. should “swiftly” conclude its review of TikTok (see 2212210007) and impose “strict structural restrictions” between the app and its Chinese parent company ByteDance, two senators said in a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last week. Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said CFIUS should consider "separating" TikTok and ByteDance, adding that reports of the app’s collection of U.S. private data prove TikTok and ByteDance “cannot be trusted by CFIUS or its tens of millions of users in the United States.”
House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans are asking the Bureau of Industry and Security for information on its export enforcement and compliance efforts involving China, including steps to crack down on Chinese transfers of controlled U.S. technology to State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSTs). In a letter sent to BIS last week, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, chair of the committee, said he is concerned China’s “economic and trade ties” with terrorism sponsors is “undermining U.S. national security and foreign policy interests.” He and Rep. Michael Lawler, R-N.Y., asked BIS to provide information on recent Chinese export violations, licensing procedures, end-use checks and more by March 2.
President Joe Biden should increase the State Department’s foreign military financing budget for FY 2024 to include up to $2 billion in grants for Taiwan, Republicans said in a letter to the White House last week. The letter -- signed by Sens. Jim Risch of Idaho and Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Reps. Michael McCaul of Texas and Mike Rogers of Michigan -- criticized what the lawmakers said have been the administration’s delay of arms sales notifications to Congress and refusal to provide information on Taiwan’s defense needs. The lawmakers said the FY 2023 defense spending bill authorized up to $2 billion in annual FMF grants to Taiwan but “without FMF grants, loans are not enough to address the scale of this challenge.”
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., introduced two bills last week that could impose new sanctions and export controls against Iran. The Deterring Iranian Support for Russia in Ukraine and Pre-empting Terrorism Act (Disrupt Act) would require sanctions on Iranian entities that provide military support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and would prevent the president from lifting sanctions on those entities unless Iran “ends its support” of Russia. The Sanctioning Transfers and Outbound Products to Iran Act (Stop Iran Act) would require the Commerce Department to increase export restrictions on Iranian entities that support terrorist activities and would better prevent U.S.-made products and components, including semiconductors, from being used to support Iranian terrorism, Lankford said.
Republican senators last week reintroduced a bill that would lift restrictions on certain gas exports to countries that don’t have a free trade agreement with the U.S. The Natural Gas Export Expansion Act, first introduced in 2021 (see 2103290044), would “expedite” export permits for liquefied natural gas to non-FTA countries by treating those license reviews the same as shipments to FTA countries.
Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J., plan to reintroduce a bill that would require the administration to produce an annual report on the relationship between criminal gangs and elites in Haiti and impose “robust” Magnitsky human rights sanctions on people identified in the report. The Haiti Criminal Collusion Transparency Act previously was introduced in October (see 2210190015).
The top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee said renewing the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill didn't happen last year because Democrats pushed "social policy and environmental policy in MTB and GSP."
Deepwater port projects off the coast of Texas are being “unnecessarily” delayed by the Transportation Department’s Maritime Administration, hindering applications that could help the U.S. export more oil and natural gas, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in a Feb. 13 letter to the agency. Cruz said the Maritime Administration “is going more than three years on average before issuing a deepwater port licensing decision -- almost three times as long as is statutorily permitted.” Although the projects are “complex,” applicants have “complained of prolonged delays associated with the Maritime Administration’s slow processing time and general lack of communication during the process,” the senator said.