New general licenses issued this week by the Treasury Department may be misused to fund terrorist efforts and human rights violations, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said. Although the licenses are designed to allow Treasury to better authorize humanitarian aid to sanctioned countries (see 2212200035), McCaul said they could help companies and banks inadvertently send money and aid to the wrong people.
The Senate on Dec. 21 confirmed Alexis Taylor to be USDA’s undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural affairs. Taylor touted the importance of the Indo-Pacific region during her September nomination hearing (see 2209230028).
Congress this week passed a bill that would impose sanctions on people and entities involved in stealing U.S. trade secrets and intellectual property. The bill, passed by the Senate Dec. 20 and by the House Dec. 22, would require the president to compile a report of “foreign individuals and entities that have knowingly engaged in, benefited from, or assisted in the significant theft of U.S. trade secrets that materially contributed to a significant threat to U.S. national security, foreign policy, or economic health,” including senior executives “of any foreign entity engaging in such theft.” The sanctions could include “property- or export-blocking sanctions, including denial of certain financial assistance, on entities named in the report.”
Two lawmakers asked the Biden administration this week to begin negotiations on trade deals with Ecuador and Uruguay. Trade agreements with both countries would “capitalize on the bipartisan momentum and success” of USMCA, said Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio.
A new Senate bill could condition the removal of U.S. sanctions against Venezuela based on a “standards-based transition to democratic order.” The bill, introduced by Sens. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., would maintain “current sanctions” on Venezuela “until there is a transition to democracy” and would require the U.S. to assess whether President Nicolas Maduro's regime should be designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization or a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. The bill also “reaffirms” that U.S. aid to Venezuela shouldn’t be restricted “except if there is a risk such aid could be used to torture or in activities related to illicit narcotics and mining.”
Lawmakers are again expressing concern about the U.S. national security review of TikTok (see 2211230033), saying they fear the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. will allow the app to continue operating in the U.S. without divesting itself from its Chinese owner Bytedance.
Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the former House Ways and Means Committee chairman who is retiring from Congress at the end of the month, told reporters in a farewell press conference that he thinks, with divided government, the administration will not be able to impose its will in trade and international tax policies by avoiding tariff reductions.
A bipartisan bill could place new sanctions on Huawei and other Chinese technology companies by adding them to the Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals List. The bill, introduced in the Senate this week by Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; and Rick Scott, R-Fla., would impose financial sanctions on “untrustworthy Chinese 5G producers who engage in economic espionage against the United States,” the lawmakers said, and “effectively freeze them” from using the U.S. financial system. Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., introduced a companion bill in the House.
House Ways and Means Committee ranking member Kevin Brady, R-Texas, who is retiring at the end of this Congress, and outgoing New Democrats Chair Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., introduced a resolution that asks the U.S. trade representative to re-launch negotiations at the World Trade Organization to liberalize trade in environmental goods.
U.S. lawmakers unveiled legislation this week that would block certain transactions with TikTok or other social media companies under the influence of China, Russia and several other foreign countries. The Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act, introduced in the Senate by Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and in the House by Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., “would protect Americans by blocking and prohibiting all transactions” with TikTok, the lawmakers said.