The Federal Emergency Management Agency set 10 exemptions for exports of personal protective equipment (see 2004080018) and formally announced exceptions for shipments to Canada, Mexico and U.S territories, in a notice filed April 17. FEMA also announced exemptions for certain shipments containing controlled PPE, shipments traveling through the U.S. involving a foreign shipper and consignee, exports to military bases and more. The new exemptions were announced less than two weeks after a leaked CBP memo detailed some of the measures (see 2004160050).

Despite calls from industry and lawmakers, the Treasury Department does not plan to introduce new authorizations for humanitarian exports to Iran, said Andrea Gacki, director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Gacki said OFAC’s current general licenses are sufficient, adding that the agency has not received many license applications to export medical goods that are not already covered by an existing exemption.

Governments should suspend certain licensing requirements, expedite customs clearances and provide relief from customs penalties during the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Customs Organization's Private Sector Consultative Group said in comments released April 16. Such measures should be adopted by countries across the globe to provide relief for the struggling trade community and to help trade continue to flow, the PSCG said.

The world could soon see increased export restrictions on food supplies due to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Simon Evenett, a trade and economics professor at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. Although export restrictions so far have been mostly limited to medical supplies, the upcoming harvesting season in Western Europe and the U.S. could be impacted because of a lack of labor due to coronavirus-related travel restrictions, Evenett said. This could lead to protectionist-style policies regarding food as well as medicine.

CBP and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are expected to issue formal guidance in coming days on the recently announced export ban on personal protective equipment, a CBP official said during an April 16 conference call. “It's undergoing final U.S. government review before publication,” he said. “There's still discussions being held at the highest levels in terms of some of the points. We're hoping we can get this resolved today.” A recent internal CBP memo about the ban has created confusion around the issue (see 2004150051).

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued an April 16 guidance clarifying available humanitarian trade exemptions for U.S. sanctions regimes that target Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Ukraine/Russia. The guidance outlines the specific exemptions available for personal protective equipment and stresses that the U.S. will not target legitimate humanitarian trade to sanctioned countries. The guidance comes amid calls from current and former lawmakers and trade experts for more clarity surrounding OFAC humanitarian waivers (see 2004100044, 2004070028 and 2004010019), which has caused confusion among industry (see 2004140027).

U.S. restrictions on exports of personal protective equipment are not expected to have a significant impact on U.S. industry, particularly because most U.S. companies produce those goods overseas, trade observers said. Companies have been more heavily impacted by recently announced Chinese restrictions on medical exports, which have caused customs delays and a backlog of shipments, the U.S.-China Business Council said.

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for April 6-10 in case you missed them.

Although the U.S. provides broad exemptions for humanitarian exports to Iran, the exemptions continue to be a source of confusion for industry, which is hindering humanitarian trade with Iran, said Katherine Bauer, a former senior policy adviser for Iran at the Treasury Department. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control may issue guidance to clarify the exemptions, Bauer said, but the Trump administration is unlikely to make any major changes to its Iranian sanctions regulations.

The U.S. should introduce support measures for U.S. technology industries that are “too critical to fail,” especially those competing for market share with China, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said in an April 13 report. As the Commerce Department seeks to restrict sales of emerging technologies to counter Chinese technology theft (see 2004010007), Congress should task the administration with expanding funding for research in those key fields -- including robotics, artificial intelligence and semiconductors -- and target it to “maximize commercialization” of the technologies in the United States. Congress should also support an “industrial investment bank” to increase advanced production in the U.S. and “encourage” the relocation of critical technology production from China to the U.S., the ITIF said.