Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., was chosen to be the House Ways and Means Committee chairman by the House Steering Committee, edging out Rep. Vern Buchanan, the Florida Republican who was considered the establishment choice.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked the Biden administration to offer more general licenses to Cuban small businesses so they can avoid the sanctions on Cuba. Wyden, who visited Cuba in late December, said he'll be talking with Senate colleagues about how to help the Cuban private sector grow. He said in a Jan. 4 press release that a stronger private sector could both lay the foundations for "fundamental political and economic reforms" in Cuba and reduce Cuban migration to the U.S. -- which was nearly 250,000 in 2022.
For the first time in 100 years, the House of Representatives was unable to choose a speaker on the first vote. Because 19 Republicans this week voted for someone other than Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., no candidate got a majority of the votes. The same result happened on the second vote.
Rep. Steve Scalise, the House Majority Leader-elect, told his colleagues in a Dec. 30 letter that he plans to bring 11 pieces of legislation for a vote during the first two weeks of the 118th Congress, including a bill that would establish a Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.
The Congressional Research Service this month published an overview of sanctions legislation introduced during the 117th Congress, including country-specific sanctions bills, bills related to human rights and terrorism sanctions, and other matters that sought to address sanctions policy. Members of Congress introduced more than 350 sanctions bills during the past two years, the report said, and seven have been signed into law.
Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., one of the leading voices for free trade in the Democratic caucus, and Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., a free-trade purist in the Republican caucus, issued a joint paper of recommendations on trade on Dec. 29, just before they were both leaving office.
The fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act includes several sanctions and export control related provisions, including measures that would require more sanctions reporting by the Biden administration, Morrison Foerster said in a recent client alert. One provision will require the president to submit a periodic report to Congress listing foreign people and entities knowingly participating in significant transactions involving Russian gold, while another will require the director of national intelligence to submit semiannual reports on the effects of U.S. sanctions against Russia. Another provision will require the DNI to study ways to provide “enhanced intelligence support” for export controls and foreign investment screening, the alert said.
The Biden administration shouldn’t relax restrictions on U.S. financial transactions with Cuba, which are needed to “hold the communist regime in Cuba accountable for human rights abuses and its sponsorship of international terrorism,” Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said in a Dec. 20 letter to the White House. The letter, signed by Sens. Jim Risch, of Idaho, and Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, both of Florida, specifically asks Biden not to revoke Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism.
On the last day of the current Congress, retiring Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, introduced a bill that would ask the Commerce Department and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to analyze the economic integration between the U.S. and China in priority sectors, and the U.S. government's views of how that integration should change over the next five to 19 years.
The Biden administration must do more to convince U.S. companies and banks to wind down business in China and Hong Kong, including through more outreach and potentially more sanctions, the top two lawmakers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said in a Dec. 19 letter to the White House and Treasury Department. Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said that while they welcomed the March 2021 sanctions against 24 Chinese and Hong Kong officials for interfering in Hong Kong’s autonomy (see 2103170027), “we believe these actions have not gone far enough. More needs to be done to ensure that the [People’s Republic of China] understands the consequences of usurping democracy and sovereignty.”