The House of Representatives on Sept. 20 passed two sanctions bills, including one that could lead to more designations of Russian officials and oligarchs. The bills were grouped as part of a broader legislative package that passed 361-69.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. should require TikTok to cut ties with China-based ByteDance and all other Chinese companies, Sen. Josh Hawley, R- Mo., wrote in a Sept. 19 letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Hawley said TikTok’s COO told Congress last week that the company’s Chinese engineers are able to access U.S. user data and that TikTok “has taken no measures to ensure that the employees in China accessing this data are not members of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Apple should “rethink” any decision to purchase chips from China’s Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., wrote in a Sept. 14 letter to the U.S. technology company. Cotton said Apple and “far too many” other American businesses “already rely on China for manufacturing and supplies. Adding another Chinese company to Apple’s supply chain, particularly one with close ties” to the Chinese government and military, “compounds these risks.”

Despite the fact that the administration has not opened any formal free trade agreement negotiations in two years, the House Ways and Means Committee chairman said he's confident a trade agreement can be reached with Taiwan.

A new Commerce Department rule aimed at making it easier for certain U.S. technologies to be shared at standards-setting bodies will “undermine” U.S. efforts to protect those sensitive technologies from being acquired by China, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said. Although the rule, issued last week (see 2209080038), sought to allow the participation of U.S. companies in international standards bodies that have members on the Entity List, McCaul said it also undermines U.S. export restrictions. “Companies that are entity-listed are threats to national security, and we need real safeguards to ensure sensitive technology is not transferred to these bad actors,” said McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. believes that a way to preserve the economic benefits of chemical plants and also fight climate change is to impose a carbon border adjustment tax on certain goods.

The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on “The Future of U.S.-Taiwan Trade” on Sept. 14 at 11 a.m. It will be livestreamed on the committee website.

The Senate Finance Committee voted unanimously to approve the nomination of Doug McKalip to be chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The full Senate must vote on his nomination before he can start the job.

Forty-four House members, led by prominent trade skeptic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., told the administration that they do not support the inclusion of eight of the 13 countries in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework negotiations, and that Congress and outside stakeholders should have "the opportunity to weigh in at the outset on proposals for specific negotiation objectives and, as negotiations continue, on draft text."

Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., told U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai that they do not want the World Trade Organization Appellate Body to be resurrected. The WTO no longer has binding dispute settlement, because members can appeal into the void if they do not like the results of a case in Geneva.