China is looking into additional measures to protect its technology firms and strengthen controls on exports through a “national technological security management list system,” according to state news agencies.

House members and experts made the case for a quick and long-term reauthorization for the Export-Import Bank of the United States during a June 4 House Financial Services Committee hearing, saying the move could significantly benefit U.S. exporters and help counter China’s export credit agencies and state subsidies. The hearing came about a month after the Senate voted to confirm three appointees to the bank’s board of directors, giving the bank enough directors for a quorum to approve transactions of more than $10 million (see 1905080073).

Panelists warned against increasingly strict export controls and criticized the Trump administration's handling of the Huawei blacklisting during a June 4 Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs hearing on “Confronting Threats From China: Assessing Controls on Technology and Investment, and Measures to Combat Opioid Trafficking.” The U.S. is drawing dangerously close to shrinking markets for U.S. semiconductor exporters, the panelists said, a move that could prove devastating for the industry. They also suggested the Trump administration’s restrictions on Huawei are too broad and have hurt U.S. exporters as well as damaged trade talks between the two sides.

Thailand’s recently passed Weapons of Mass Destruction Related Items Act will take effect Jan. 1, 2020, according to a June 4 notice from Baker McKenzie, regulating all goods related to the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Products include “armaments,” dual-use items and “tangible and intangible items that could have commercial interest, technology or even software,” the notice said. The act would control exports, re-exports, transshipments, transits, brokering and other actions related to the weapons.

The Commerce Department plans to issue an advance notice of proposed rulemaking for export controls of foundational technologies in the coming weeks, Commerce officials said. The notice will be published “quite soon” and in “weeks, not months,” said Rich Ashooh, Commerce's assistant secretary for export administration, speaking at a June 4 Bureau of Industry and Security Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee meeting. Hillary Hess, director of Commerce’s regulatory policy division, was more reserved in her prediction, saying she is unsure exactly when the notice will be released but assuring the committee it is the next export-related notice that BIS plans to publish. “It is in the process now,” Hess said at the meeting. “We’re trying to prepare it.”

China opened an investigation into FedEx after it said the shipping company “failed to deliver” packages to certain addresses in China, state-media reported June 1. China suspects FedEx of “undermining the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese clients,” the report said, damaging the rights and interests of FedEx’s clients and violating industry laws.

China is investigating complaints from U.S. exporters about Chinese customs clearances, including accusations of slower processing, increased inspections and inexplicable delays in licensing approval, China’s Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen said during a June 2 press conference. Wang said he did not know if the complaints were about “a real or specific situation,” according to an unofficial translation of his comments, but some U.S. exporters allege the moves are another step in China’s 2018 threat to take retaliatory measures against the U.S. that extend beyond tariff hikes (see 1905290041).

China is finding ways other than tariff increases to retaliate against U.S. exporters, further damaging the U.S.’s struggling agricultural export sector, panelists said during a Washington International Trade Association discussion on U.S.-China trade. The expected retaliation from China -- along with stalled trade negotiations and the increased difficulty of accessing China’s markets -- could lead to crippling, long-term consequences for some U.S. exporters, the panelists said.

The Department of State published its spring 2019 regulatory agenda. The agenda includes a new mention of a proposal to amend the International Traffic in Arms Regulations to include definitions for "activities that are not exports, re-exports, or retransfers." The activities include "launching items into space; providing technical data to U.S. persons within the United States or within a single country abroad; and moving a defense article between the states, possessions, and territories of" the U.S., State said. The proposal also "removes from ITAR licensing requirements the electronic transmission and storage of unclassified technical data via foreign communications infrastructure when the data is secured sufficiently to prevent access by foreign persons." Under the proposal, State would also amend the ITAR to create definitions for “access information” and revise definitions of release to include “the improper provision of access information to foreign persons.” State is aiming to issue the proposal in September, it said.

The agenda also includes a rule that would revise Categories I, II and III of the U.S. Munitions List to include items that gives the U.S. a “critical military or intelligence advantage or otherwise warrant control at the highest level.” The rule states that exports of “commercially available firearms and ammunition,” removed from Category I and III, will continue to be controlled under the Bureau of Industry and Security’s Commerce Control List. State said the transition from the Munitions List to the CCL “will result in a net reduction in regulatory burden for the affected manufacturing and export community.” State aims to issue the rule in May 2019, it said.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee advanced three bipartisan measures calling for sanctions against countries it said are involved in corruption, human rights abuses and trade that harms U.S. national security. The measures, advanced on May 22, called for sanctions on countries in the Northern Triangle, Georgia and Turkey.