The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control released a quarterly report on licensing activities related to exports of agricultural goods, medicine and medical devices to Iran and Sudan from October to December 2018, OFAC said in a Dec. 17 notice. The report contains information on 36 of the licenses, including statistics on how many were approved or denied.

The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security issued a correction for end-user information in the Code of Federal Regulations, in a notice in the Federal Register. The notice corrects an entry for Ibrahim Haqqani under Afghanistan.

The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking comments on an information collection used to respond to congressional and industry requests to make “foreign availability determinations” about the Export Administration Regulations, according to a notice. In the information collection, exporters are urged to submit data to “support the contention” that items controlled for national security reasons are “available-in-fact, from a non-U.S. source, in sufficient quantity and of comparable quality so as to render the control ineffective.” Comments are due Feb. 10.

The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking comments on an information collection related to requests for participation in foreign boycotts against countries friendly to the U.S., according to a notice. BIS analyzes the information to “note changing trends” and decide on actions to take to prevent participation in “foreign restrictive trade practices and boycotts.” Comments are due Feb. 10, 2020.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is scheduling seven trade missions in 2020 in an effort to “grow and diversify” export markets for U.S. agricultural exporters, according to a Dec. 5 press release. The agency is planning trade missions to North Africa, the Philippines, Spain and Portugal, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, Peru, and the United Aram Emirates, making up the most trade missions the USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service has planned in one year. USDA conducted several trade missions in 2019 with industry representatives, including to Mexico (see 1911050024), West Africa (see 1910280030) and Vietnam (see 1910110050).

Huawei is urging suppliers to move operations offshore to avoid U.S. sanctions and export controls, which would violate U.S. law, according to a Dec. 3 Reuters report. The Chinese technology giant has been “openly advocating” for companies to escape the jurisdiction of U.S. controls so sales can continue, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Reuters. “Anybody who does move the product out specifically to avoid the sanction ... that’s a violation of U.S. law,” Ross said. “So here you have Huawei encouraging American suppliers to violate the law.”

The State Department issued notices of its report to Congress under the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act, which requires the State and Treasury Departments to assess where Iran is buying sensitive materials for its nuclear program and which sectors of its economy are being controlled by the country’s military.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture released a report on China’s recent decision to allow imports of U.S. poultry products (see 1911140019). The report, released Nov. 25, lists steps exporters need to take to be able to export to China and provides information for how “federally inspected establishments” can apply to become exporters. This includes approval by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and China’s General Administration of Customs. All shipments must also include an import permit obtained by the Chinese importer, an “advance electronic notification” sent to China of the shipment, and they may be subject to border clearance and testing by Chinese customs, the report said.

The recently released annual reports to Congress on reviews conducted by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. in 2016 and 2017 (see 1911220060) show an “upward trend” in the number of notifications filed with CFIUS, according to a Nov. 26 post by Thompson Hine. In particular, voluntary notifications for filings in the finance, information and services sectors during the 2016-2017 period (see 1911220060) were particularly high, the post said. For the 2015-2017 period, acquisitions involving Chinese investors accounted for the largest number of CFIUS notices -- about 26 percent of all notices, the post said. In addition, the use of “mitigating measures to obtain CFIUS approval is increasing,” the law firm said. Mitigating agreements -- or agreements put in place by CFIUS agencies that “feel that” certain conditions must be met to ensure compliance and to mitigate potential risk to U.S. national security -- were involved in 18 transactions in 2016 and jumped to 29 transactions in 2017, the post said.

The State Department has forwarded notifications of proposed export licenses to Congress as required by the Arms Export Control Act, the agency said in a Nov. 27 notice in the Federal Register. The notice includes details on the 91 notifications, sent from November 2018 until May 2019.