The EU asked the World Trade Organization to establish a compliance panel regarding Colombia's tariffs on frozen fries from the EU, the Directorate-General for Trade announced Nov. 14. The bloc decided to make the move after consultations between the parties fell through, the Directorate-General said.
Country of origin cases
The Federal Maritime Commission is asking the parties to a West Coast ocean shipping and port agreement to provide more information about their alliance before an updated version takes effect, it said in a notice released this week.
The Trump administration would be unwise to expand its export controls to cover older-generation semiconductors destined to China, but it could pursue new restrictions over less advanced versions of the tools used to make certain chips, technology policy analysts said in interviews, particularly if it’s willing to be more aggressive than the Biden administration in talks with the Dutch and Japanese.
China renewed its antidumping duties on imports of nitrile butadiene rubber from South Korea and Japan, the country’s commerce ministry announced Nov. 8, according to an unofficial translation. The duties, originally imposed in 2018, range from 12% to 37.3% for South Korean companies and 16% to 56.4% for Japanese companies. The rubber has oil, water and heat-resistant properties and has uses in the industrial and mechanical industries. The duties will remain in place for five years from Nov. 9.
The Bureau of Industry and Security and its technical advisory committees should do more public outreach to make sure companies are aware of important export control updates sometimes buried in Federal Register notices, a BIS committee heard last week. That outreach is especially critical for companies working with industrial chemical processing equipment, a committee member and industry lawyer said, which has commercial uses but is increasingly drawing BIS scrutiny for its military capabilities, including in chemical weapons.
U.K. negotiators flew to Seoul this week to begin talks on upgrading a trade deal with South Korea that was negotiated more than a decade ago. The U.K. specifically wants to put in place “digitalised customs procedures,” simplified rules of origin and “reduced or zero tariffs” for exports to South Korea, adding that it wants to take better advantage of South Korea’s “booming import demand.”
Members of the multilateral Missile Technology Control Regime need to do more to account for rising innovation and commercialization in the global space technology industry, which may be making export control enforcement more challenging and increasing the risk of missile proliferation, researchers said in a recent report.
A new proposed rule from the Census Bureau could change how the agency regulates in-transit shipments that travel through the U.S. from foreign countries before being exported to another foreign destination.
The U.S. this week unveiled new trade and financial restrictions against people and companies across more than 17 countries for helping Russia evade sanctions or for supporting the country’s military, adding nearly 400 to the Treasury Department’s sanctions list and more than 40 to the Commerce Department’s Entity List. Another move by Commerce will tighten existing controls on nearly 50 entities that it said are procuring U.S.-branded microelectronics for Russia.
An indictment was unsealed on Oct. 22 charging Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps brigadier general Ruhollah Bazghandi and members of his network with sanctions evasion, among other charges, in their efforts to murder a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin in New York City, DOJ announced.