As part of its continuing efforts to protect US communications networks from communications equipment and services that pose a national security risk, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on June 17, 2021, released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Notice of Inquiry (NPRM/NOI) seeking comments on its proposal to prohibit the…
On January 13, 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a withhold-release order (WRO) on all cotton and tomato products from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) based on information that reasonably indicated that such products used forced labor. This action comes after CBP’s December 2020 WRO on cotton…
On January 19, 2021, the Commerce Department issued an interim final rule to implement the Executive Order on Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain (E.O. 13873), which was issued on May 15, 2019. The interim rule comes after the November 2019 proposed rule implementing E.O. 13873.…
On December 21, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published a Military End User (MEU) list to further implement the military end user/end use (MEU) rule defined in Section 744.21 of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). An EAR license is required to export or reexport to the listed entities…
On December 2, 2020, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued an import detention or Withhold Release Order (WRO) against cotton produced by Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) based on information that reasonably indicated XPCC used forced labor within its cotton supply chains. This action comes after CBP issued…
On November 12, 2020, President Trump issued an Executive Order (E.O.) prohibiting U.S. persons from engaging in any transaction (defined as a “purchase for value”) of publicly traded securities, or transacting in financial products that are derivative of, or provide investment exposure to, securities of designated Communist Chinese military companies…
Over the course of the Obama and Trump administrations, U.S. officials have found new ways to incorporate human rights concerns into sanctions and export control policies. Recent announcements by the Commerce and State Departments address how, by the U.S. government in its licensing approvals, and private companies in their foreign-sales…
On September 15, 2020, a World Trade Organization (“WTO”) panel found that the Trump Administration’s unilateral tariffs imposed on Chinese products violated WTO rules regarding nondiscrimination and import tariff rates agreed to by the United States. The dispute concerned China’s challenge to the Trump Administration’s tariffs imposed pursuant to the…
On September 14, 2020, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued five Withhold Release Orders (WROs) for a range of goods produced in the Xinjiang region of China. Under 19 U.S.C. § 1307, CBP can initiate enforcement actions for products made wholly or “in part” by forced or indentured labor—defined…
On September 18, 2020, the U.S. Commerce Department published two rules defining the scope of prohibited transactions related to the mobile applications, WeChat and TikTok. The scope of prohibited transactions clarified the two parallel executive orders (EOs) issued by the Trump administration on August 6, 2020, which required the Commerce…