The Senate Finance Committee approved the nominations of Chris Wilson for chief innovation and intellectual property negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on a 24-4 vote, and María Pagán to be a deputy USTR, who would lead the delegation to the World Trade Organization, 27-1. Both are longtime civil servants at USTR (see 2108110038).
The Bureau of Industry and Security hasn’t done enough to restrict exports of sensitive technologies to Chinese artificial intelligence companies, Republican senators said in a Nov. 15 letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. The senators urged BIS to “expeditiously review and then add” to the Entity List all A.I. suppliers to China’s military, including those listed in a recent report by Georgetown University. In a report last month, university researchers said very few A.I. suppliers to China face specific U.S. export controls (see 2110290018).
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., introduced a resolution late last week to block the Biden administration's first major arms sale to Saudi Arabia. The joint resolution of disapproval would prohibit the sale of $650 million worth of advanced medium range air-to-air missiles and other equipment announced by the Defense Department earlier this month (see 2111050007). Omar said it would be “unconscionable” to sell weapons to the Saudi government. “We should never be selling human rights abusers weapons, but we certainly should not be doing so in the midst of a humanitarian crisis they are responsible for,” she said Nov. 12. “Congress has the authority to stop these sales, and we must exercise that power.”
Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., along with 22 Democrats and Republicans from Georgia, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, California, South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, asked U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to press Indian government officials to lower their 36% tariffs on American pecans when she meets with them this week. "As you may know, American pecan producers have faced many challenges due to rising imports from Mexico, Chinese tariffs, natural disasters like Hurricane Michael, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Gaining access to new markets for pecans will help ease the pain while orchards are replanted and as we push China for full implementation of its obligations under the U.S.-China Economic and Trade Agreement," they wrote. They said that pecan production contributes $3.57 billion to the "economies of the 15 pecan producing states in the United States."
The Senate Finance Committee will have a hearing on the nominations of Maria “Marisa” Lago to be undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade and Lisa Wang for assistant secretary of Commerce on Nov. 16 at 10:15 a.m.
Five Republican senators this month reintroduced a bill they say would expedite government approvals for natural gas exports. The Small Scale LNG Access Act would require the Energy Department to grant export approvals “without modification or delay” for liquefied natural gas exports equal to or less than 51.1 billion cubic feet per year, the senators said. It would also ensure the exports aren’t sent to “bad actors,” including regimes in Cuba and Venezuela, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said.
President Joe Biden on Nov. 10 signed a bill into law that will impose additional sanctions against the Daniel Ortega regime in Nicaragua. The legislation would require the Biden administration to examine whether sanctions are sufficiently applied to government officials and businesses that are “obstructing the establishment of conditions necessary for the realization of free, fair, and transparent elections” in Nicaragua. It also encourages the administration to work more closely with other countries on coordinated Nicaragua sanctions and adds Nicaragua to a list of countries subject to certain corruption-related sanctions. Lawmakers have previously called on the U.S. to impose more sanctions against the Ortega regime (see 2111090012).
A Senate bill with bipartisan support would expand which deals involving sensitive personal U.S. data must be declared to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. The Protecting Sensitive Personal Data Act, introduced this month by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Raphael Warncok, D-Ga., would require mandatory declarations for investments that involve a range of personal data information, including genetic test results, health conditions, insurance applications, financial hardship data, security clearance information, geolocation data, private emails, data for generating government identification and credit report information. Warnock said “foreign entities” are investing in U.S. companies to “exploit” this data. “We need to strengthen CFIUS’s oversight authority of these transactions to protect Americans and mitigate this serious national security threat,” Rubbio said.
Several Republican senators last week introduced an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would require mandatory sanctions against Nord Stream 2 AG, the company behind the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. The amendment, introduced by Jim Risch of Idaho, Rob Portman of Ohio, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Ted Cruz of Texas, would also require sanctions against “any entity responsible for planning, construction, or operation” of the pipeline, or their successor entity, as well as “any other corporate officer of or principal shareholder with a controlling interest” in those entities.
The bipartisan infrastructure package that passed the House Nov. 6 will dedicate $17.4 billion to ports, Coast Guard facilities, inland waterways, and land ports of entry, and flood and environmental projects from the Army Corps of Engineers, with much of the funds expected to be spent over a three- to five-year horizon.