The State Department published its spring 2022 regulatory agenda, including a new mention of a final rule that will expand the types of defense items and services that can be sent to Australia, the U.K. and Canada. The rule would specifically amend the International Traffic in Arms Regulations to expand certain trade under existing defense trade treaties between the countries, and would also amend the Canadian exemptions. Other changes will make “clarifying amendments and conforming updates” to Supplement No. 1 to part 126 of the ITAR, specifically to U.S. Munitions List Categories IV(i), manufacturing know-how, and Category XII, night vision entries. The agency hopes to issue the rule this month.
Export controls may not stop all illegal shipments, but that doesn’t mean the U.S. and others should not work to improve cooperation and coordination, experts agreed during a June 27 Brookings Institution panel.
The U.S. this week announced a host of new sanctions targeting Russia’s defense industrial base, including export restrictions against entities helping Moscow evade U.S. export controls and new financial sanctions targeting state-owned companies. The sanctions target more than 100 entities and 50 people supporting Russia’s defense industry and add 36 entities to the Commerce Department’s Entity List, including six for supporting Russia’s military.
Kazakhstan recently extended its wheat flour export restrictions until Sept. 30, USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service said in a report last week. Kazakhstan also added 550,000 metric tons of wheat to the original 1 million metric ton quota, and 370,000 metric tons of wheat flour to the original 300,000 metric tons quota. The country first imposed the restrictions, which were set to expire June 15 (see 2204290010), to ensure domestic “food security” amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The World Trade Organization launched a Trade Connectivity Heatmap to provide a broad overview of the trade relationships between various economies across product categories, the WTO announced June 24. The map uses bilateral trade flow data from over 180 economies aggregated into around 70 product types to allow users to zero in on data for bilateral product-by-product relationships. The map allows for the organization of data based on four indicators: imports from a selected economy as a share of other economies' total imports in a chosen product category, exports meant for the selected economy as a share of other economies' total exports, the selected economy's imports originating from other economies as a share of the selected country's imports in the selected product category, and a selected country's exports meant for other economies as a share of the selected country's exports in the chosen product category.
Vietnam seized four tons of dried tamarind suspected of being smuggled through a district bordering with Cambodia, the state-run CustomsNews reported June 24. An anti-smuggling team working with local police discovered the goods while inspecting a fruit barn in the Tinh Bien district. The team found 400 boxes of dried tamarind from a foreign country, CustomsNews said. The barn's owner did not have the boxes' invoices and documents proving their origin, though he said he bought them in the Xuan Hoa hamlet. The anti-smuggling team verified this was not the case, and turned the case over to the Tinh Bien District Police for additional investigation.
The Singapore State Court sentenced Ho Shyan Tien, a Singaporean national, to eight months in prison and levied a $4.4 million (in Singapore dollars) fine for evading the Goods and Services Tax on imports of various goods between 2015 and 2019, Singapore Customs announced June 24. Ho, the only director of freight forwarding company Sea-Net Cargo Express, pleaded guilty to six charges of evading GST on the imports.
The U.K.'s Export Control Joint Unit on June 23 introduced new export restrictions against Russia. The restrictions prohibit the "export, supply and delivery, making available and transfer" of goods and technology used for internal repression, relating to biological and chemical weapons and maritime, as well as additional oil refining and critical industry. Further restrictions include bans on the export of jet fuel and fuel additives, sterling or EU-denominated banknotes and prohibitions on the import, acquisition or supply and delivery of revenue-generating goods that originate in or are consigned from Russia.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, in a bid to break the impasse in negotiations around the trade title in the China package, introduced a bill that would renew trade adjustment assistance and pass a limited trade promotion authority that could only be used for a free trade agreement with the U.K.
The EU renewed until June 23, 2023, its sanctions regime over Russia's annexation of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, the European Council announced June 20. Originally introduced in 2014, the restrictions' sectoral sanctions include import bans on goods originating from Crimea or Sevastopol into the EU and financial investments from the affected areas. The council also barred the export of certain goods and technologies to Crimean companies or for use in Crimea.