The following nominations appear on the Executive Calendar for July 21, 2025. These individuals have been nominated by President Trump to fill key roles across the Department of Commerce, State Department, development finance agencies, and U.S. foundations: A nomination on the Senate Executive Calendar is procedurally eligible for confirmation by the Senate, but still requires scheduling and action by Senate leadership.
The U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC) released its 2025 Member Survey on Wednesday, revealing a steep decline in American companies’ confidence in the China market, driven by deteriorating trade relations, expanding export controls, and escalating industrial competition.
In response to sweeping new tariffs announced by President Donald Trump, key U.S. trading partners are preparing a range of retaliatory measures, escalating the likelihood of a global trade conflict by August 1. While many hope cooler heads will forstall a begger-thy-neighbor race to autarky, the dogged belief of Mr. Trump that import taxes are free money makes real the prospect of persistently high tariffs. In the face of such intransigence, trading partners may find retaliation a political necessity.
House China Committee Chair John Moolenaar (R-MI) and Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), who leads the Senate Special Committee on Aging, sent letters to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) requesting an urgent briefing on the risks posed to American investors by Chinese companies listed on U.S. exchanges.
The Trump administration has approved licenses permitting Nvidia to resume exports of its H20 artificial intelligence chips to the People’s Republic of China, reversing controls imposed just three months ago.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has expanded on its May 2025 Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking public comment on measures to bolster the integrity of its equipment authorization program. The proposal outlines expanded restrictions on participation by entities affiliated with foreign adversaries and contemplates increased domestic testing requirements.
The European Commission launched its comprehensive Quantum Strategy on July 2, 2025, committing €50 million to build a "resilient, sovereign quantum ecosystem" across five priority areas including research, infrastructure, ecosystem strengthening, defense applications, and workforce development.
President Trump has issued an executive order prohibiting the 2020 acquisition of Jupiter Systems, LLC by Suirui International Co., Limited, a Hong Kong-based firm majority-owned by a Chinese entity. Jupiter Systems is a maker of collaborative visualization and display wall solutions.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Friday the partial termination of a shipbuilding contract with Eastern Shipbuilding Group for the U.S. Coast Guard’s Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) program, citing performance delays and financial inefficiencies.
At a WITA-hosted panel Friday, former senior U.S. trade officials described an increasingly chaotic and opaque landscape for global trading partners navigating the Trump administration’s tariff policy. Former Assistant USTRs Wendy Cutler, Mark Linscott, Daniel Mullaney, and policy advisor Michael Smart outlined a central and unresolved problem: the uncertain role and treatment of Section 232 tariffs in current negotiations.
President Trump said Wednesday he will hit Brazil with a 50 percent “reciprocal” tariff, partly out of anger over the criminal prosecution of former Brazilian President Bolsonaro.
As part of its newly released National Farm Security Action Plan, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a series of measures to limit foreign ownership of American farmland, citing national security concerns.
The international humanitarian sector is entering a period of acute contraction as the Trump administration signals a retreat from longstanding U.S. support for global aid operations. While needs reach historic levels — with over 122 million people forcibly displaced — the world’s major relief agencies are warning of catastrophic funding shortfalls.
President Trump is once again deferring enforcement of a federal law requiring the popular social media app TikTok to divest itself from Chinese parent company ByteDance. For the third time, Mr. Trump has granted a 90-day extension for TikTok to propose a plan to separate its U.S. operations, despite the statute’s firm divestment deadline and the Supreme Court’s decision upholding its constitutionality earlier this year.
The White House pressed 14 trade partners to come to the table or face slightly adjusted versions of the "reciprocal tariff" rates announced back in April through a flurry of letters posted to President Donald Trump’s social media account Monday afternoon.
President Trump signed into law the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (H.R. 1) on July 4, enacting sweeping reforms to energy tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and imposing stringent new restrictions on foreign ownership and influence over eligible projects.
President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that the United States has concluded a new bilateral trade agreement with Vietnam, establishing a two-tiered tariff system for Vietnamese exports and duty-free access for U.S. goods entering the Vietnamese market.
Sanctions published last week by OFAC effectively weaponize access to cloud platforms, identity systems, and communication tools, highlighting the vulnerability of global institutions reliant on U.S.-based digital infrastructure.
Fresh off Capitol Hill, Mayur Patel spent the last five years as chief international trade counsel for the Senate Finance Committee, most recently working closely with the White House on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The Export Practitioner called him for a quick chat on his first day in-office as Hogan Lovells' newest international trade partner.
President Trump announced that, overwhelmed by the scale and complexity of negotiating individual trade deals with over 170 countries, his administration will begin issuing unilateral tariff notices to U.S. trading partners starting July 4. The letters will specify new U.S. tariff rates on imports from each country, with rates taking effect on August 1.