On January 19, 2021, one day before the transition to the new Biden Administration, the U.S. Department of Commerce published its interim final regulations (“Regulations”) that will allow the United States to review, block,...more
3/26/2021
/ Biden Administration ,
CFIUS ,
China ,
Electronic Communications ,
Foreign Investment ,
Information Technology ,
Interim Final Rules (IFR) ,
Licensing Rules ,
Prohibited Transactions ,
Technology ,
U.S. Commerce Department
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last week ruled that certain securities trading restrictions will be prevented from going into effect with respect to Xiaomi Corporation (“Xiaomi”) under Section 1237 of...more
On January 13, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) issued a new Withhold Release Order (“WRO”) under Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 on all cotton products and tomato products from the entire Xinjiang region of...more
On January 11, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo announced the Trump Administration in its final week in office is returning Cuba to the official State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism. Cuba will thus re-join...more
1/15/2021
/ Biden Administration ,
Cuba ,
Cuban Assets Control Regulations (CACR) ,
Export Administration Regulations (EAR) ,
Foreign Policy ,
Humanitarian Assistance ,
ITAR ,
NGOs ,
Obama Administration ,
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ,
State Sponsors of Terrorism ,
Trump Administration ,
TSRA ,
United Nations
Rounding out an already-intense 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) issued three notices in December that expanded export sanctions and restrictions against Chinese, Russian, and...more
1/14/2021
/ Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) ,
China ,
Commerce Control List ,
Economic Sanctions ,
Export Administration Regulations (EAR) ,
Export Controls ,
Exports ,
Hong Kong ,
Licensing Rules ,
Military End Use ,
Popular ,
Russia ,
U.S. Commerce Department ,
Venezuela
With only two weeks left in its term in office, the Trump Administration issued yet another 11th hour Executive Order (“EO”) on January 5 that purports to create a new legal framework to ban transactions with certain Chinese...more
On December 2, 2020, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) issued a Withhold Release Order (“WRO”) against cotton products made by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (“XPCC”) or any of its affiliates...more
On November 12, 2020, President Trump issued Executive Order 139591 (“the Order”) that will shortly bar any U.S. person from “any transaction in publicly traded securities, or any securities that are derivative of, or are...more
11/20/2020
/ China ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Defense Sector ,
Department of Defense (DOD) ,
Divestment ,
Entity List ,
Executive Orders ,
Foreign Investment ,
International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) ,
National Security ,
NDAA ,
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Trump Administration ,
US Trade Policies
On September 14, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) expanded a ban on certain imports from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (“Xinjiang”) in the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”) while saying that it was still...more
On August 16, 2020, the United States re-imposed Section 232 tariffs on Canadian-origin primary aluminum imports, adding another twist to the long-standing trade dispute with Canada over its aluminum exports to the United...more
Some U.S. importers may be able to defer payment of certain U.S. import tariffs by 90 days under a temporary final rule (“Tariff Deferral Rule”) published on April 22 by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) and the U.S....more
An importer recently agreed to pay $5.2 million to settle a False Claims Act (“FCA”) case alleging evasion of antidumping duties (“AD”) on wooden bedroom furniture from China. The importer, Blue Furniture Solutions, LLC (now...more
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) has banned the export from the United States of certain masks, respirators and respirator parts, and medical gloves used as personal protective equipment (“PPE”) through a new...more
After months of anticipation, President Donald Trump signed an interim “Phase One” trade agreement (“the Agreement”) with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He at the White House on January 15, 2020. Under the Agreement reached after...more
1/23/2020
/ Agricultural Sector ,
China ,
Currency Manipulation ,
Dispute Resolution ,
Energy Sector ,
Exchange Rates ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Manufacturers ,
Section 301 ,
Tariffs ,
Trade Agreements ,
Trade Negotiations ,
Trump Administration ,
USTR ,
WTO
December 2019 has yielded some potentially significant relief to U.S. businesses and agricultural producers that may improve the terms of trade in 2020 after a prolonged period of increasing and damaging friction in...more
12/27/2019
/ Agricultural Sector ,
Canada ,
CFIUS ,
China ,
Export Controls ,
FCC ,
Imports ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Mexico ,
NAFTA ,
Tariffs ,
Trade Relations ,
Trade Wars ,
Trans-Pacific Partnership ,
Trump Administration ,
United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) ,
US Trade Policies ,
USTR
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Investment Security published proposed regulations on September 24 (“Proposed Regulations”). Under the Proposed Regulations, more foreign investment transactions will be subject...more
10/31/2019
/ CFIUS ,
Covered Transactions ,
Critical Infrastructure Sectors ,
Cross-Border Transactions ,
Exemptions ,
Export Controls ,
FIRRMA ,
Foreign Investment ,
National Security ,
Personal Data ,
Proposed Regulation ,
Real Estate Transactions ,
Tribal Corporations ,
U.S. Treasury
On August 13, 2019, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced a phased imposition of a new Section 301 10% tariff on roughly $300 billion in annual imports from China that were not covered in three previous...more
The Administration has been fully occupied this summer in its ongoing disputes with America’s major trading partners. The U.S. Government is at least nominally resuming high level trade negotiations with China after months...more
7/26/2019
/ Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) ,
Canada ,
China ,
EU ,
Export Administration Regulations (EAR) ,
Export Bans ,
Export Controls ,
France ,
Imports ,
Indictments ,
Mexico ,
NAFTA ,
Section 301 ,
Tariffs ,
Trade Relations ,
Trump Administration ,
UK Brexit ,
United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) ,
US Trade Policies ,
USTR ,
WTO
In an Executive Order (EO) issued on Wednesday, President Trump gave exceedingly broad authority to the U.S. Department of Commerce to block transactions of information and communications products and services if the...more
5/17/2019
/ 5G Network ,
Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) ,
China ,
Digital Communications ,
Economic Sanctions ,
Export Administration Regulations (EAR) ,
Information Technology ,
National Security ,
Retaliatory Tariffs ,
Tariffs ,
Telecommunications ,
Trump Administration ,
U.S. Commerce Department
On May 13, 2019, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (“USTR”) publicly released a notice of the Trump Administration’s intention to subject another US$300 billion in annual U.S. imports of Chinese-origin...more
5/16/2019
/ China ,
Exclusions ,
Exports ,
Imports ,
Notice and Comment ,
Retaliatory Tariffs ,
Section 301 ,
Tariffs ,
Trade Relations ,
Trump Administration ,
US Trade Policies ,
USTR
On Friday, May 10, 2019, the Trump Administration increased the tariff rate on US$200 billion worth of annual U.S. imports of Chinese-origin products from the current rate of 10% to 25%. That sharp hike in U.S. tariffs...more
On April 17, 2019, the Trump Administration announced that it would now allow plaintiffs to file U.S. federal court cases against individuals and companies that use private property expropriated by the Cuban government after...more
4/23/2019
/ Blocking Statutes ,
Canada ,
Cuba ,
Damages ,
Economic Sanctions ,
EU ,
Expropriation ,
Fair Market Value ,
Foreign Entities ,
Mexico ,
Multinationals ,
Nicaragua ,
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ,
Personal Property ,
Secretary of State ,
Trafficking ,
Trump Administration ,
Venezuela
The governments of the United States, Mexico, and Canada signed a trade agreement (“USMCA”) in November 2018, which would replace the existing North American Free Trade Agreement (“NAFTA”). The Trump administration has begun...more
4/23/2019
/ Aluminum Sales ,
Canada ,
Cross-Border Transactions ,
Free Trade Agreements ,
Mexico ,
NAFTA ,
Steel Industry ,
Tariffs ,
Trump Administration ,
United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) ,
US Trade Policies
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (“USTR”) proposed on April 8 to impose additional tariffs on $11 billion of imported products, at 100% of the value of the goods, if they are made in any of the 28 member states of...more
As part of the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 Farm Bill) signed into law by President Trump today, Congress authorized the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to use federal funds to assist in the marketing of...more