The Commerce Department may be considering approving an export license for assault-style or sniper semi-automatic rifles to Azerbaijan despite the “credible allegations of atrocities” that Azerbaijan has committed for years against Armenians, said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In a Feb. 1 letter to Secretary Gina Raimondo, Menendez said Commerce should deny the license or explain how it plans to ensure the weapons don't contribute to killings and other human rights violations.

A new, bipartisan bill in the Senate could block the U.S. from selling crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China or any company controlled by the Chinese government. The bill -- introduced this week by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska; Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and others -- comes after the House passed similar legislation last month.

Fourteen Republican senators, led by Florida's Sen. Marco Rubio, wrote to the treasury secretary and secretary of state as the Cabinet officials traveled to China to meet with President Xi Jinping.

Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., introduced a bill that would require the administration to keep export controls on Huawei. Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla., and Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, co-sponsored the measure.

Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., introduced a bill directing the administration to impose sanctions on an Iraqi militia group, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, which he said conducted attacks against U.S. soldiers in Baghdad. The bill is called the Sanctioning Iranian-Backed Militia Terrorist Act.

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, R-Texas, promised a "thorough review of the policies and procedures" at the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security after the state-run China Academy of Engineering Physics reportedly was able to continue purchasing U.S.-made semiconductors since 2020 despite being on a U.S. export ban list since 1997.

Nineteen House Republicans, led by Rep. Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin, introduced a non-binding resolution this week calling on the administration to negotiate a free trade agreement with Taiwan. The lawmakers also want the U.S. to recognize Taiwan as an independent country, and establish formal diplomatic relations.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., introduced bills last week to ban TikTok, the short-video platform owned by China-based Byte Dance. "Banning [Chinese Communist Party] tied TikTok nationwide is the only route to ending this malicious cybersecurity threat,” Buck said in a press release.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., is working on a bill to revise certain aspects of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, he said in a brief interview at the Capitol last week. There are a “lot of opportunities” under the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) partnership that “we haven’t realized right now,” Gallagher said, adding that the ITAR “remains a barrier to cooperation with the Aussies and the Brits.” It “makes no sense to me,” he said.

Reps. Brian Mast, R-Fla., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., recently reintroduced a bill that would require the administration to send Congress a report identifying any foreign person or agency that “knowingly assists in, sponsors, or provides significant financial or material support for, or financial or other services to” Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The report also should identify senior members of those two groups. The bill would require a number of sanctions on those people and groups, including no exports of controlled technologies, and says that the executive branch could block all financial transactions with the people and groups, if it chooses. A previous effort to hike sanctions on those supporting Hamas passed the House in 2019.