Electronic Export Information requirements for Puerto Rico treat the territory like a foreign country, unnecessarily burden U.S. shippers and go against the wishes of the Puerto Rican people and government, said Mike Mullen, executive director of the Express Association of America. Speaking on a Jan. 28 call hosted by a Commerce Department advisory committee, Mullen said the EAA spoke with a member of President Joe Biden's transition team in early January about eliminating the filing requirements.

Economics Professor Mary Lovely, who studies multinationals' operations in China, told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission that the trade war didn't make the U.S. less reliant on China, and that export controls designed to isolate China have not been effective, either. She noted that China is still the top exporter to the U.S., and their goods make up 17% of U.S. imports. The Commission met online Jan. 28.

The U.S.’s decision to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal and rescind Iranian sanctions would be complex and time-consuming, likely taking months of bureaucratic work and negotiations, sanctions and Iran experts said. The new President Joe Biden administration has a range of Iranian-related sanctions issues to tackle before rejoining the agreement, the experts said, such as which Iranian entities and officials to de-list, whether to endorse Europe’s INSTEX and how to address humanitarian exports to Iran.

The Bureau of Industry and Security fined a California business owner $540,000 and suspended his export privileges after he allegedly caused false information to be submitted on controlled exports to Russia, BIS said Jan. 27. The agency said Julian Demurjian, who owned CIS Project, violated the Export Administration Regulations when he provided false values for exports of telecommunication equipment controlled for national security, encryption and anti-terrorism reasons.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, President Joe Biden’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said she would support sanctions against China and will lead an effort to stop the country from taking over international standards-setting bodies. She said she also will take aggressive measures to counter China’s growing role at the United Nations and its human rights violations. “I see that as my highest priority,” she told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Jan. 27 during confirmation proceedings.

Gina Raimondo, President Joe Biden’s nominee for commerce secretary, declined to say whether she plans to keep Huawei and other Chinese technology companies on the Entity List but made clear that Commerce will aggressively tackle illegal Chinese trade practices and human rights abuses. Speaking before the Senate Commerce Committee Jan. 26, Raimondo told lawmakers that the agency won’t make decisions on Chinese trade restrictions until completing a sweeping review of the measures and assessing their impact on U.S. national security (see 2101250049). “The President has been clear that we need to step back and review broadly our trade policies as it relates to China,” Raimondo said.

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories for Jan. 19-22 in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

Electronics industry association SEMI called for industry input on a review of Trump administration export control policies, in a Jan. 25 letter to secretary of commerce nominee Gina Raimondo. The trade group said the prior administration made drastic changes to export control regulations without allowing enough industry input, and said the new administration should formally hear industry concerns.

The Joe Biden administration has begun a comprehensive review of U.S. trade policies involving China, including several of the restrictions imposed by the Trump administration during its final months, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said. Among those restrictions is the export controls placed on goods destined for Huawei (see 2012210044).

The Department of Defense is revising its process for identifying critical technologies that should be subject to export controls after the Government Accountability Office said its current process is too broad and lacks interagency coordination. Although the DOD is tasked with sharing a list of critical technologies with agencies that oversee export controls -- including the State, Commerce and Treasury departments -- officials at all three agencies said they sometimes don’t receive the list. None of the agencies received the list in 2019, the GAO said, even though it could have helped them better protect against trade theft and illegal exports.