The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. should review all U.S. investment transactions by Brazilian meatpacking conglomerate JBS S.A., its holding company J&F Investimentos and any entity owned by the company’s owners Wesley and Joesley Batista, two senators said. The companies use “criminal practices to obtain the funds to acquire U.S. companies,” which may jeopardize U.S. economic security and undermine U.S. efforts to combat corruption, Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said in an Aug. 13 letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. “With JBS S.A. planning further U.S. acquisitions in the near future,” the senators said, “the need for a thorough investigation is urgent.”
India is expected to soon allow up to 1.5 million metric tons of foreign-origin soybean meal at a 16.5% basic customs duty, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service said Aug. 13. But USDA said it is awaiting final approval from India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and said the lack of any official guidance is causing “high uncertainty on how this import quota will be implemented” through Oct. 31. Despite the uncertainty, USDA said Indian buyers are “starting to contract for soybean meal imports from neighboring Bangladesh, Vietnam, and for transshipments from the United States and other origins.”
Dutch customs recently announced it will increase monitoring of import declarations for certain sectors, including in the textile, biodiesel, e-commerce and e-bike industries, KPMG said Aug. 12. The Netherlands said it will specifically monitor the customs value and tariff classification for clothing imported from China, Vietnam, India and others; increase monitoring of the origin and tariff classification for biodiesel and used cooking oil from the U.S.; more “intensively” audit e-commerce consignments; and more closely scrutinize the origin and customs value of all imported e-bikes. Although the customs agency said it will target those import declarations, other imports may “also be subject to additional scrutiny,” KPMG said.
The Bureau of Industry and Security revoked export privileges for Matteo Taerri for violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, BIS said in an Aug. 10 order. Taerri was convicted June 4, 2020, after illegally trying to export a U.S.-origin Prostak filter module to Iran without the required license from the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. Taerri was sentenced to time served, three years of supervised release and issued a $200 fine. BIS denied Taerri’s export privileges for 10 years from the date of conviction.
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, is asking the Bureau of Industry and Security for information on Huawei export licenses. Wicker said BIS recently held an “informal briefing” with Wicker’s staff in which they withheld certain licensing information “based on confidentiality concerns,” but Wicker believes the information should have been provided. “The information requested neither focused on any particular company's compliance nor could have resulted in a breach of confidentiality for a company under investigation,” the senator said in an Aug. 11 letter to BIS.
More than a third of Republican senators are telling President Joe Biden that the European Union's plan to apply tariffs to aluminum, cement, fertilizers, iron and steel from countries that are not pricing carbon as the EU does is protectionism in disguise. They noted that U.S. steel is already more carbon efficient than the product is in the EU.
The Biden administration will maintain a Trump-era policy that loosened export restrictions on certain unmanned drones, a decision that drew applause from the aerospace defense industry last year but sparked concern from some lawmakers.
The European Council removed Navy Cmdr. Bion Na Tchongo and Capt. Paulo Sunsai from its Guinea-Bissau sanctions regime in an Aug. 5 implementing regulation. Both listings were originally made in 2012 in response to their roles in “threatening the peace, security or stability of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau.”
Japan's Ministry of Finance extended antidumping duties on potassium hydroxide from South Korea and China to Aug. 12, 2026, it said in an Aug. 10 notice. The ministry determined that the expiration of the duties would have resulted in injury to the domestic potassium hydroxide industry, resulting in the extension of the duties, which were set to expire Aug. 8. The duties were originally implemented in 2016 and exclude hydroxide from Hong Kong and Macao. The dumping margin sits at 49.5% for potassium hydroxide from South Korea and at 73.7% for the Chinese goods.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service issued a report Aug. 6 detailing China’s new imported dairy product customs procedures (see 2107080023), which now allows importers to certify to possession of testing reports on imported dairy products instead of submitting the originals to the country’s customs agency. USDA released English translations of the report and the annexes, which include guidance for following the new procedures.