Export controls need to be improved following reports that the Chinese spy balloon shot down by the U.S. earlier this year contained American technology, Reps. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., said in an emailed statement June 29. The lawmakers cited a Wall Street Journal report that said the spy balloon was “loaded with American-made equipment” that allowed it to collect information.
Lawmakers this week launched a bipartisan task force to help modernize the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program. Reps. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., and Seth Moulton, D-Mass., will lead the FMS Technical, Industrial and Governmental Engagement for Readiness Task Force, which will convene experts from industry and the State and Defense departments, as well as others, to conduct oversight of the FMS process.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee last week advanced two sanctions-related bills, one involving China and another dealing with Iran.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., objected to a June 23 Senate motion that could have allowed the chamber to expedite procedures for a potential vote on a U.S.-Taiwan trade bill passed by the House a day earlier. Cotton objected to a unanimous consent request put forward by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., saying the Senate “should not be ramming through such agreements” while lawmakers are still “studying this matter.”
Republican senators reintroduced a bill last week that would allow Congress to approve or disapprove of Biden administration efforts to lift sanctions against Iran. The Iran Sanctions Relief Review Act, first introduced in 2021 (see 2102260025), would “provide a check on the Biden administration if they try to circumvent Congress during negotiations,” said Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman, both of Arkansas. “Congress should review any sanctions relief Iran receives.”
A Republican-backed bill in the Senate could require the Bureau of Industry and Security to adopt a license review policy of presumption of denial for controlled exports to “any end user” in China or Russia and to notify Congress before approving a license to either country. After notifying Congress, lawmakers would be able to block BIS from granting the license, which will help “create additional safeguards to ensure sensitive technology does not flow to our adversaries,” the bill’s introducers’ press release said.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., speaking at an American Compass event this week on Capitol Hill, said he's worried that the pervasiveness of U.S. sanctions could move Brazil, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, India and others away from using the dollar. "And I've been a supporter of sanctions," he said. "But at some point, you sanction enough people, and you create this entire marketplace that's sanctioned," and that creates an incentive to try to find a way around the sanctions by buying goods in China's yuan.
A bipartisan bill introduced in the House this week could lead to new export restrictions on electronic waste. The bill, introduced by Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., aims to ensure the waste doesn’t become “the source of counterfeit goods that may reenter military and civilian electronics supply chains” in the U.S. The full text of the bill wasn’t yet available. Congress has considered similar export restrictions on e-waste in recent years (see 1909190041 and 2202030062).
The Biden administration should better use sanctions to convince the Mexican government to take stronger actions against drug cartels, Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote in a June 21 letter to the Treasury and State departments. The lawmakers, led by Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the committee’s top Republican, said Mexico has turned a “blind eye” toward its cartels, and the Biden administration should sanction state and local Mexican officials “who directly support or enable" them.
A bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate this week could allow the U.S. to better target sanctions evasion by rewarding information leading to the arrest or conviction of evaders. The Sanctions Evasion Whistleblower Rewards Act, introduced in part by Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, would expand the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program to offer rewards for “information about the identity or location of individuals and entities that defy sanctions imposed” by the U.S. or the U.N., the lawmakers said.