The Commerce Department announced Friday that it has made the decision to continue classifying Vietnam as a non-market economy country for purposes of calculating US antidumping duties on imports from Vietnam.

Canada and the United States have concluded substantive negotiations for a Technology Safeguards Agreement (TSA). Global Affairs Canada announced Friday.   The Canada-United States TSA, upon its entry into force, will establish the legal and technical safeguards needed to allow the use of U.S. space launch technology, expertise and data for space launches in Canada while ensuring the proper handling of sensitive U.S. technology. The bilateral treaty-level agreement would allow American organizations to conduct space launch activities in Canada with local service providers.

The White House and State Department hosted a conference on the national security risks of connected vehicles July 31, while Senators called for the administration to focus on the risks the technology poses for privacy and individual liberty.

The Senate Appropriations Committee completed the markup of the "Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act  S.4795  providing $11.54 billion for the Department of Commerce. This includes $206 million for the Bureau of Industry and Security [BIS]. The recommendation is $15 million above the fiscal year 2024 enacted level and $17.4 million below the budget request.

House China hawks introduced legislation aimed at "ensuring transparency into the material and systemic risk posed by US investment in and reliance on China." The PRC Risk Transparency Act will require public companies with "meaningful exposure' to China to disclose what percentage of their revenue, profit, capital investment and supply chain is tied to the PRC. It also will require these companies to disclose their relationships with the Chinese Communist Party and with companies identified by the US government as national security threats or human rights violators.

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers, including the chairman and ranking member of the House Select Committee on China, unveiled legislation yesterday creating a new structure within the US government to prosecute international trade crimes. This bill would direct DOJ to establish a new structure dedicated to prosecuting nternational trade crimes in order to enhance US capabilities for detecting, investigating and prosecuting trade fraud, duty evasion, transshipment and other trade-related crimes.

Legislation to ban Chinese-made connected vehicles from US military bases and other federal installations was introduced yesterday by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). The Countering Adversary Reconnaissance (CAR) Act would bar Chinese connected vehicles from much of the U.S., making it impractical and unprofitable to import them in the first place. The Countering Adversary …

A joint resolution of Congress to void and nullify the Commerce Department's “Revision of Firearms License Requirements” (89 Fed. Reg. 34680) passed out of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs July 11 on a vote of 24 to 23. Sponsored by Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn), the motion is a companion to his“Stop the Bureaucratic Ineptitude Shuttering Respectable and Upstanding Lawful Exporters Act” or the “Stop the BIS Rule Act” (HR 8208) introduced in May.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) are calling on the Commerce Department to beef up its new rule on firearms license requirements in order to prevent US weapons exports from contributing to violence and killings across the globe. The lawmakers are responding to an interim final rule issued in April by Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which strengthened Commerce’s exports licensing requirements and regulations. But there are still critical weaknesses to the rule, the lawmakers said in a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

In his weekly news conference, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian reiterated China's refusal to engage in nuclear nonproliferation discussions in light of arms sales to Taipei.    "This has seriously compromised the political atmosphere for continuing the arms control consultations. Consequently, the Chinese side has decided to hold off discussion with the US on a new round of consultations on arms control and non-proliferation," he stated.

While not directly naming China, G7 trade ministers pledged Thursday to use their trade tools when needed to counter trade-distorting trade practices. “We will continue to tackle non-market policies and practices, as well as harmful non-market excess capacity and other market distortions resulting from them,” G7 trade ministers said in a joint statement wrapping up their two-day meeting in Italy. The ministers' statement emphasized a commitment to the role of, and reform of the World Trade Organization, as well as placed a particular emphasis on Export Control & Investment Screening

Stating "We will be a nation of Truth, Justice, and Common Sense," the Republican party platform adopted by the Milwaukee Convention goes beyond calls to "deport the millions of illegal Migrants who Joe Biden has deliberately encouraged to invade our Country," and "DRILL, BABY, DRILL," with specific policy recommendations for industry and trade.

The nine nuclear-armed states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Israel—continued to modernize their nuclear arsenals and several deployed new nuclear-armed or nuclear-capable weapon systems in 2023, according to the most recent SIPRI Yearbook.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson announced his intention to renew the House Select Committee on the CCP for the 119th Congress, according to a Committee announcement.   The 119th Congress will convene in January 2025.

The Department of the Treasury, as Chair of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would expand CFIUS’s jurisdiction over certain transactions by foreign persons involving real estate in the United States. This proposed rule would add over 50 military installations, across 30 states, to the existing list of installations around which CFIUS has jurisdiction, including over land purchases.

Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson repeaded the Treasury's call for bankers to maintain correspondent relationships abroad, and reverse the wholesale cessation of such arrangements for administrative compliance expediency which has been taking place.   "We share the concerns that Pacific Island countries are experiencing among the most serious declines in correspondent banking relationships in the world," he noted. "These terminations of correspondent banking relationships can be calamitous, given that many Pacific Island countries receive approximately 10 percent of their collective GDP in the form of personal remittances.

The volume of world merchandise trade turned up in the first quarter of 2024 after remaining flat throughout 2023, according to the latest trade statistics released by the WTO. Merchandise trade …

The Treasury Department's Office of Investment Security formally published the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the Outbound Investment Rule announced June 21st.   Written comments must be received by August 4, 2024.

Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued its OFAC Guidance: Production Submission Standards, updating OFAC’s former data delivery standards. This guidance provides technical and general guidance to persons submitting material to OFAC and applies primarily to persons providing responses to administrative subpoenas, requests for information, disclosures, and especially for submissions that may entail voluminous documentation (e.g., more than 100 pages).

A United Nations report released on Wednesday revealed that Chinese companies and academic institutions own the largest number of patents for generative artificial intelligence, or GenAI, from the last decade – six times more than the United States, which placed second.Not only does it make up for nearly 70 per cent of patents, with Tencent, Ping An Insurance and Baidu leading globally, but it has published the highest number of scientific articles on GenAI between 2010 and 2023.