Sens. Mike Braun, R-Ind., and Jon Tester, D-Mont., on Jan. 25 introduced a bill aimed at improving the tracking of foreign investment in U.S. farmland.

The Biden administration announced on Jan. 26 that it's temporarily pausing pending decisions on liquefied natural gas exports while it reviews criteria for approving those projects.

Senate Finance Committee ranking member Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, along with six Democrats, six Republicans and independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, urged the administration to come out against a proposal at the World Trade Organization to waive intellectual property protections for COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics. There already is an IP waiver for vaccines against the disease. The waivers, which loosen the Trade-Related Aspects of IP Rights, or TRIPS, in the body, "could have unintended consequences for the development of new treatments for dangerous diseases, while doing little to improve access to medicine," they argued.

Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, urged the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to investigate the proposed sale of Vista Outdoor’s Sporting Products business to Czechoslovak Group (CSG), saying the transaction could endanger national security by transferring an American manufacturer of firearms ammunition to a “Kremlin-linked” foreign company.

Four Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, sent Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo a series of recommendations for strengthening firearms export controls, Warren’s office said Jan. 24.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Jan. 24 approved a bill that would authorize the government to seize about $5 billion in frozen Russian central bank assets in the U.S. to help pay for rebuilding Ukraine.

South Dakota's two senators, Republicans Mike Rounds and John Thune, asked the USDA and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to begin talking to countries that are major poultry importers to make sure they will not put up trade barriers to vaccinated poultry, or to eggs laid by chickens vaccinated with a new avian flu vaccine.

The House Homeland Security Committee and the House Select Committee on China have asked a U.S. executive from Europe-based ABB to testify about how the firm secures the software and hardware it provides for ship-to-shore cranes built by China’s Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company Limited (ZPMC).

After members of Congress were blindsided by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative backing away from digital trade advocacy, they are taking no chances in spelling out their desire that the agency push for a continued moratorium on tariffs on digital goods. The World Trade Organization has renewed that moratorium since 1998, but some member countries want to start collecting duties on the sale of streaming movies, software as a service, and more.

The Treasury Department declined a request by the two leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to impose Global Magnitsky sanctions against leading Chinese surveillance company Hikvision for human rights violations, Chair Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said this week.