The United Kingdom's Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation on Aug. 21 updated its guidance on the country’s current financial sanctions targets. The guidance includes a list of the country’s asset freeze targets, a guide explaining availability in four different formats of its list of financial sanctions targets, and a list of people subject to sanctions and other restrictive measures due to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Paraguay designated Hizballah, al-Qaida, ISIS and Hamas as terrorist organizations, following similar sanctions levied by the U.S., the State Department said in an Aug. 21 press release. The State Department applauded the move and said it will help “cut off the ability of these groups … to raise money around the world.” Paraguay joins Argentina and the United Kingdom as countries that recently announced sanctions against Hizballah, which is "not a defender of Lebanon as it purports to be, but a terrorist organization dedicated to advancing Iran’s malicious agenda," the State Department said.
CBP is close to bringing industry on board to "go operational" with electronic manifest for export, said Jim Swanson, director of CBP’s Cargo and Security Controls Division, during the Aug. 21 Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee meeting in Buffalo, New York. Swanson said he has multiple meetings in the coming weeks with companies about using electronic manifest. CBP has been testing it internally for a while, Swanson said.
China Criticizes US Restrictions on Huawei, Plans to Make Unreliable Entity List Announcement 'Soon'
China’s Ministry of Commerce repeated claims that it will retaliate against higher U.S. tariffs, said it opposed new U.S. measures against Huawei and plans to make an announcement involving its so-called unreliable entity list “soon,” spokesman Gao Feng said at an Aug. 22 press conference, according to an unofficial translation of a transcript from the briefing.
Norway is proposing to amend regulations to simplify customs clearances and the country’s value-added tax system for low-value shipments, according to an Aug. 19 KPMG report. The proposal would repeal VAT exemptions and other “indirect taxes” on imports worth less than about $350. New legislation would leave sellers and “online marketplaces … liable for VAT on cross-border sales of low-value goods to final consumers in Norway,” KPMG said. Online sellers would “register, declare, and pay VAT” on the sales under the new system, KPMG said, which would take effect Jan. 1, 2020.
The State Department approved the potential sale of $8 billion worth of defense-related goods to Taiwan, the Defense Department’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in an Aug. 20 press release. The sale to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office includes 66 F-16C/D Block 70 aircraft, engines, radars, computers, “multipurpose launchers” and other military products. The sale serves U.S. national interests by supporting Taiwan’s military to help it “maintain a credible defensive capability,” the press release said.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced sanctions on three Chinese citizens and two Chinese entities for drug trafficking, Treasury said in an Aug. 21 press release. OFAC designated Fujing Zheng and his company, Shanghai-based Zheng Drug Trafficking Organization (Zheng DTO), under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. OFAC also sanctioned Xiaobing Yan for being a drug trafficker, Guanghua Zheng for supporting Zheng DTO and Shanghai-based Qinsheng Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., for being owned by Zheng.
The United Kingdom’s department of Revenue and Customs on June 10 submitted written evidence to an inquiry from the U.K.’s Committee on Arms and Export Controls. The questions and answers document includes details on how the department determines enforcement penalties for export violations, how the department decides when to proceed with certain cases, the department’s “high vacancy rate” among staff and more. The department also addressed why it only conducted six “full criminal investigations” of a total of 652 "preliminary assessments" of potential breaches of export controls in 2016, difficulties in investigating end-user violations and what plans it has for preparing U.K. export controls after Brexit.
Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security issued a guidance on Aug. 20 about the disclosure of technology or software subject to export controls “between and among members of standards setting or development groups or bodies.” BIS said it issued the guidance after receiving “a number of questions” about the temporary general license for Huawei and the Chinese company’s addition to the Entity List. The guidance tries to clarify which activities are prohibited among standards organizations when discussing Huawei and its Entity Listing.
In the Aug. 20 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted: