The Commerce Department extended the validity for its temporary general license for Huawei and 115 of its non-U.S. affiliates until May 15, the agency said in a notice. The extension replaces the previous license renewal for Huawei issued in February, which was set to expire April 1 (see 2002130059).

Export controls over technology and software used for the 3D printing of firearms will not transition from the State Department to the Commerce Department after a Washington court granted a request to block the Trump administration from completing the transfer. The court, whose March 6 order temporarily blocked portions of a January final rule to transfer the controls, suggested the administration likely violated notice-and-comment standards and pointed to the “grave reality” the transfer might have on the proliferation of 3D printed guns. The decision stemmed from a January request (see 2001240047 and 2002070043) filed by 20 states and Washington, D.C., to urge the court to vacate the final transfer rules, which were scheduled to take effect March 9 (see 2001170030).

If President Donald Trump is not re-elected, the next administration will remain focused on China, export controls and Entity List actions but will likely approach China with a more clear, predictable strategy, two former top Commerce Department officials said. “You would see a more well-defined, carefully thought-through approach to issues like Huawei,” Peter Lichtenbaum, who served as Commerce’s assistant secretary for export administration during the Bush administration, said during a March 6 International Trade Update panel at the Georgetown University law school. “Not because it's a Democratic [administration], but because it's a more regular-order administration and less policy made by tweet.”

The coronavirus outbreak is expected to decrease global exports by $50 billion as the spread of the virus continues to disrupt global supply chains, according to a March 4 report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. The slowdown is directly tied to China’s manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index, which fell by 22 points in February, implying a 2% reduction in exports on an annual basis, the report said. The fact that China is a “central manufacturing hub” will have significant “repercussions” for countries reliant on trade with the country, the report said. “Any slowdown in manufacturing in one part of the world will have a ripple effect in economic activity across the globe because of regional and global value chains,” UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi said in a statement.

The Commerce Department is “pushing forward” on increased restrictions of foreign exports to Huawei that contain U.S. content, Secretary Wilbur Ross said during a March 5 Senate hearing. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., told Ross he hopes Commerce follows through with the restrictions -- which would include changes to the de minimis rule and the Direct Product Rule (see 2002050047) -- adding that Commerce has been “appropriately aggressive” in pursuing more stringent controls on technology exports to Huawei and China. But Van Hollen noted that Commerce has faced pushback from other parts of the Trump administration, including the Defense and the Treasury Departments (see 2001240012).

The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects China to begin fulfilling portions of its agricultural purchase commitments by the end of this summer, Secretary Sonny Perdue said during a March 4 House hearing. Although the coronavirus outbreak has delayed the purchase commitments under the phase one trade deal (see 2001150073) and thrown global agricultural trade into uncertainty, Perdue said the USDA has received “signals” that China intends to fully comply with the purchase agreements (see 2002250055). “We believe that China is a shrewd customer. They’re going to buy where the best deal is,” Perdue told the House Agriculture Committee. “We think they’ll come into this market in late spring and summer and fulfill the commitments.”

The U.S. should lobby for increased export controls and more stringent sanctions regimes relating to weapons proliferation at the upcoming Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference, arms control experts said during a March 3 House hearing. While it may be difficult for all treaty members to sign off on a broad consensus document relating to non-proliferation, the U.S. should use the spring conference in New York to seek common ground on controls of items used to produce dangerous weapons.

Companies looking to comply with U.S. sanctions should use screening programs from trusted third parties instead of trying to build their own, according to Brian Grant, head of global compliance of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. The need for companies to have robust compliance programs has grown “significantly” over the last several years, he said, and using screening software and procedures from experienced companies creates less risk.

Companies should ensure their data is fully encrypted with no access by third parties before using the new encryption carve-out in the upcoming amendments to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, according to a cybersecurity compliance expert and a trade lawyer. Although they lauded the ITAR for recognizing that some technology, such as encryption, can protect transfers of export controlled data, both said complying fully with the carve-out may be complicated. “There is a wrong way to do the end-to-end encryption, so you need to be very careful when applying it,” said Alex Major, a cybersecurity and trade lawyer with McCarter & English, speaking during a Feb. 27 webinar hosted by the Massachusetts Export Center.

While it is too soon to tell whether recent U.S. reforms of foreign direct investment screening will prove successful, the regulations introduced novel provisions to incentivize improved global investment screening, according to a former investment screening counsel for the Treasury Department. The Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (see 2001140060) also appears to fill many of the gaps encountered by previous U.S. investment screening efforts, said Anne Salladin, a Hogan Lovells lawyer and former senior counsel to the chairperson of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.