Republican senators last week reintroduced a bill that would lift restrictions on certain gas exports to countries that don’t have a free trade agreement with the U.S. The Natural Gas Export Expansion Act, first introduced in 2021 (see 2103290044), would “expedite” export permits for liquefied natural gas to non-FTA countries by treating those license reviews the same as shipments to FTA countries.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., introduced two bills last week that could impose new sanctions and export controls against Iran. The Deterring Iranian Support for Russia in Ukraine and Pre-empting Terrorism Act (Disrupt Act) would require sanctions on Iranian entities that provide military support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and would prevent the president from lifting sanctions on those entities unless Iran “ends its support” of Russia. The Sanctioning Transfers and Outbound Products to Iran Act (Stop Iran Act) would require the Commerce Department to increase export restrictions on Iranian entities that support terrorist activities and would better prevent U.S.-made products and components, including semiconductors, from being used to support Iranian terrorism, Lankford said.
Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J., plan to reintroduce a bill that would require the administration to produce an annual report on the relationship between criminal gangs and elites in Haiti and impose “robust” Magnitsky human rights sanctions on people identified in the report. The Haiti Criminal Collusion Transparency Act previously was introduced in October (see 2210190015).
The top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee said renewing the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill didn't happen last year because Democrats pushed "social policy and environmental policy in MTB and GSP."
Deepwater port projects off the coast of Texas are being “unnecessarily” delayed by the Transportation Department’s Maritime Administration, hindering applications that could help the U.S. export more oil and natural gas, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in a Feb. 13 letter to the agency. Cruz said the Maritime Administration “is going more than three years on average before issuing a deepwater port licensing decision -- almost three times as long as is statutorily permitted.” Although the projects are “complex,” applicants have “complained of prolonged delays associated with the Maritime Administration’s slow processing time and general lack of communication during the process,” the senator said.
New U.S. export restrictions on six Chinese cities with ties to China’s balloon surveillance program is a “step in the right direction,” but it should have come much sooner, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said. “It shouldn’t have taken a flagrant violation of American territorial sovereignty for BIS to take these measures to prevent [the Chinese Communist Party] from using U.S. technology to compromise our national security,” McCaul, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said last week in a news release.
A group of Texas members of the House of Representatives wrote to officials at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and USDA lauding their “forceful stand” against Mexican attempts to ban imports of genetically modified corn, and urging them to file a USMCA dispute if an agreement with Mexico is not reached.
The Biden administration should take “immediate action” through an executive order to screen U.S. outbound investments in China, Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in a commentary published this week in The Washington Times. Although the two lawmakers championed the National Critical Capabilities Defense Act, which would create a Committee on National Critical Capabilities to review those investments, they said the administration can move more quickly.
Senators are working closely with the Biden administration, and believe they have its support, on a bill that could strengthen the ability of the U.S. to respond to economic coercion by foreign countries (see 2302080068). The bill, reintroduced this week by Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Chris Coons, D-Del., could allow the president to lower duties on non-import-sensitive goods made by a country that lost exports due to coercive actions; increase duties on imports from the "foreign adversary" committing the coercion; and allow the U.S. to more easily facilitate trade with the coerced parties.
Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Chris Coons, D-Del., reintroduced a bill that would give the president the authority to lower duties on non-import-sensitive goods made by a country that lost exports due to coercive actions, and increase duties on imports from the "foreign adversary" committing economic coercion. It would also give the administration the ability to waive some export financing requirements and expedite regulations to facilitate trade with the coerced parties.