India and the U.S. will negotiate a bilateral trade agreement that will cover multiple sectors in tranches, with the first aiming for completion in the fall of 2025, President Donald Turmp and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in their joint statement, released after their meeting Feb. 13. The two leaders also announced plans to increase U.S. military sales to India and possibly reduce defense trade restrictions under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.
Former President Joe Biden's administration made the most “aggressive and far-reaching use” of trade tools of any U.S. administration in history, and the new Trump administration is on track to “wield these tools in an even more aggressive manner,” Gibson Dunn said in a 2024 international trade recap released this month. Although the Treasury Department under Biden imposed sanctions at a faster rate than any of his predecessors, the law firm noted that President Donald Trump favors tariffs, which could cause the targets of those tariffs, including U.S. trading partners in Europe and Asia, to deploy similar tools “either in retaliation against U.S. measures or in pursuit of their own strategic interests.”
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned a network of people, companies and ships that it said are moving millions of barrels of Iranian crude oil to China on behalf of the Iranian military and a sanctioned front company, Sepehr Energy Jahan Nama Pars (see 2311290034).
The Trump administration should build on a January move by President Joe Biden that was designed to ease how the government authorizes transfers of missile technology-related exports to close allies, said Sean Wilson, a non-resident aerospace policy researcher with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Vice President JD Vance swore in former Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., as secretary of state Jan. 21, a day after the Senate voted unanimously to approve Rubio's nomination. On the first day in his new role, Rubio was scheduled to meet with his counterparts from Australia, India and Japan. At his Jan. 15 confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rubio defended the role of sanctions and said he hopes to reverse a decline in the State Department’s influence in foreign policy-making (see 2501150066).