The Biden Administration last week substantially modified restrictions on U.S. person investments in certain Chinese companies, focusing those new restrictions particularly on entities with ties to the Chinese defense or...more
6/11/2021
/ Biden Administration ,
China ,
Department of Defense (DOD) ,
Executive Orders ,
Military End Use ,
NDAA ,
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
SDN List ,
Surveillance ,
Technology Sector ,
Trump Administration
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 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
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 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 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
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
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
According to the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed over the weekend that neither the United States nor China would increase tariffs over the next 90 days, pending further...more
On November 5, 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) will reimpose certain economic sanctions against Iran that had been held in abeyance under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action...more
On Sunday, September 30, 2018, the U.S. and Canadian governments announced that they had reached agreement on a new trilateral trade agreement with Mexico, which will replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)....more
10/4/2018
/ Canada ,
Cross-Border Transactions ,
Exports ,
Foreign Relations ,
Free Trade Agreements ,
Imports ,
Mexico ,
NAFTA ,
Trade Relations ,
Trump Administration ,
United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) ,
US Trade Policies
Since July 2018, the Trump Administration has imposed two sets of tariffs on goods made in China under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 (“Section 301”) (19 U.S.C. § 2411) that cover an estimated $50 billion in imports...more
After months of deliberation, Congress has passed the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 (“FIRRMA”) as Title XVII in the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (“2019...more
8/15/2018
/ CFIUS ,
China ,
Covered Transactions ,
Critical Infrastructure Sectors ,
Cross-Border Transactions ,
Emerging Technology Companies ,
Export Controls ,
FIRRMA ,
Foreign Investment ,
National Security ,
NDAA ,
Trump Administration ,
U.S. Commerce Department ,
U.S. Treasury
On July 25, 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a Russia sanctions bill, “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act” (“H.R. 3364”) by an overwhelming vote of 419 to three. This broad-ranging sanctions...more
After months of public pronouncements on the future, including threatened withdrawal from, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Trump Administration announced on May 18, 2017, its intention to begin...more
On March 1, 2017, President Donald Trump released his first major policy statement on U.S. foreign trade relations. Issued through the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (“USTR”), a part of the Executive Office of the...more