Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., is working on a bill to revise certain aspects of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, he said in a brief interview at the Capitol last week. There are a “lot of opportunities” under the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) partnership that “we haven’t realized right now,” Gallagher said, adding that the ITAR “remains a barrier to cooperation with the Aussies and the Brits.” It “makes no sense to me,” he said.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., introduced bills last week to ban TikTok, the short-video platform owned by China-based Byte Dance. "Banning [Chinese Communist Party] tied TikTok nationwide is the only route to ending this malicious cybersecurity threat,” Buck said in a press release.

Reps. Brian Mast, R-Fla., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., recently reintroduced a bill that would require the administration to send Congress a report identifying any foreign person or agency that “knowingly assists in, sponsors, or provides significant financial or material support for, or financial or other services to” Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The report also should identify senior members of those two groups. The bill would require a number of sanctions on those people and groups, including no exports of controlled technologies, and says that the executive branch could block all financial transactions with the people and groups, if it chooses. A previous effort to hike sanctions on those supporting Hamas passed the House in 2019.

Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., who was the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, will take the chairmanship of the subcommittee now that Republicans are in the majority. The announcement was made Jan. 26. He issued a statement that said American consumers and producers are sitting on "the sidelines of the global economy because of the Biden administration’s failure to put forward a proactive trade agenda."

The Combatting Global Corruption Act, a bill that would rank countries on their efforts to fight corruption, and would direct the State Department to evaluate whether the worst offenders should be subject to Magnitsky Act sanctions, was introduced this week in the Senate. It's the same bill that was introduced in early 2021 (see 2102120035).

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and ranking member Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, told U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai that USMCA's full potential has not been realized, and that USTR must pursue "robust enforcement."

Republicans named members to the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party. The committee will be bipartisan, but its Democratic members have not yet been announced.

The Biden administration should quickly approve shipments of "critical weapon systems" to Ukraine, including "Leopard 2 tanks, ATACMS, and other long-range precision munitions," Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a Jan. 18 statement. The country's "current indecision" is "costing Ukrainian lives," it said, and the administration should approve the shipments "without delay."

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., new to the position, announced the committee's new Republican members:

Members of the House of Representatives voted 365-65 on the second day of the session to create a Select Committee on China. The committee, which will be led by Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., will be bipartisan.