Three days after Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo suggested her Bureau of Industry and Security needs more funding to handle a surge in export licensing requests (see 2312040041), three key House Republicans said on Dec. 5 that BIS must strengthen its export controls before they will support a budget increase for the agency.
A dozen House Democrats, led by Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., recently introduced a bill that asks the Biden administration to coordinate with Mexico to increase outbound inspections by CBP on the land border with Mexico, with the aim of reducing the number of guns smuggled from the U.S. to Mexico.
Four Republican senators have called on the Commerce Department to reverse its decision to remove China’s Institute of Forensic Science from the Entity List, saying the easing of trade sanctions on the scientific lab was premature.
More than 60 House members, led by senior Ways and Means Committee Democrat Rep. Mike Thompson of California and Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to negotiate an end to China's retaliatory tariffs on American wine, and to negotiate lower tariffs in India and Vietnam, where American wine faces 150% and 50% tariffs, respectively.
The State Department should “immediately” update its Cuba Restricted List to capture affiliates of listed entities that are evading U.S. sanctions, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said in a Nov. 28 letter to the agency. Although the list was created in 2017 to block U.S. people and companies from doing business with Cuban government-controlled entities, those entities have since created “dozens of new hotels and companies that fall outside the scope” the restrictions, Rubio said.
Senate Republicans reintroduced a bill this week that would sanction the Yemen-based Houthi militant group as a foreign terrorist organization, reversing a Biden administration decision in 2021 to revoke the group’s designation (see 2102100016). The bill, introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and sponsored by six other Republicans, would subject the Houthis to strict financial blocking measures and sanction the group’s leaders. The Biden administration revoked the sanctions because of concerns the measures were hindering humanitarian aid to the region.
A House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy and Regulatory Affairs hearing focused on the need for more domestic mining of critical minerals, but administration witnesses noted that imports -- and subsidizing processing of domestically mined minerals -- are just as essential to uninterrupted supply.
A new bipartisan bill in the Senate and House would allow DOJ to “more quickly” seize sanctioned Russian assets through existing forfeiture processes and transfer proceeds from those assets to help Ukraine’s reconstruction efforts. The Asset Seizure for Ukraine Reconstruction Act, introduced this week, would lift the $500,000 cap on administrative forfeitures of assets owned by Russian oligarchs and others, and would also “clarify DOJ’s transfer authority, ensuring that the U.S. government can transfer to Ukraine all the funds it acquires through seizure of Russian oligarch assets,” according to a news release.
Prominent members of the House of Representatives objected to a USMCA panel ruling last week that said Canada's rewrite of its tariff rate quotas for U.S. dairy exports didn't violate the trade agreement (see 2311240002). U.S. farmers thought they would have the opportunity to sell directly to Canadian consumers, but dairy processors in Canada still control access.
A House bill with Republican support could require the administration to report to Congress any Ukrainian government officials who violate the end-use monitoring agreements for certain U.S. defense assistance. The text of the bill, published last week, said the U.S. would impose visa restrictions on Ukrainian officials guilty of violating those monitoring agreements. “We have so far sent $113 billion to Ukraine and the Biden Administration wants to send them even more,” said Rep. Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., who introduced the bill. “This legislation is needed so that no more of Americans’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars are stolen by corrupt officials in Ukraine.”