Sanctions officials are sometimes unable to judge the effectiveness of the Trump administration's sanctions regimes, the Government Accountability Office said, pointing to the difficulty of tracing the effects of sanctions and the administration's constantly changing foreign policy goals. Officials said it is sometimes impossible to determine whether U.S. sanctions are the only or even the “most significant” reason for a foreign country changing its behavior, the report said. They also said U.S. policy goals can change while a sanctions regime is still active, “making it difficult to measure sanctions’ effectiveness in achieving any ultimate policy objective.”

United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Oct. 2 released details of his proposal for customs procedures involving Northern Ireland after Brexit (see 1910010070). The proposal seeks to replace the “Irish backstop,” a key hurdle to passage of a transition deal in the U.K. Parliament. The proposed framework would effectively keep Northern Ireland within the EU’s regulatory framework for at least four years after the end of a transition period in 2020, giving the Northern Ireland parliament the ability to exit the proposed framework.

U.S. companies and trade associations criticized China’s high import tariffs, inconsistent import clearance procedures and restrictive sanitary requirements in comments to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative ahead of an Oct. 2 hearing on China’s commitment to World Trade Organization obligations.

Japan has not issued a “single export approval” for hydrogen fluoride to South Korea in three months, South Korea said, saying Japan’s export restrictions are increasing supply chain uncertainties and damaging companies. “Japan’s export restrictions are an unfair and discriminatory export-restrictive measure that is directed only and unilaterally against Korea,” South Korea said in an Oct. 1 statement.

The Japan-South Korea dispute is unlikely to be resolved soon, and some blame should be placed on the U.S., trade experts said during a Center for Strategic and International Studies event on Sept. 30. While former U.S. ambassador to South Korea Kathleen Stephens said the Trump administration's use of export controls to address trade issues might have encouraged Japan and South Korea to take similar steps, former National Security Council staff member Michael Green said U.S. inaction is partly responsible for the escalating tensions.

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for Sept. 23-27 in case they were missed.

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton said U.S. sanctions are not being enforced effectively and criticized what he said is a lack of U.S. involvement in the Japan-South Korea trade dispute.

The next few months include a "rapid-fire succession of trade and tech war deadlines" that poses a high level of uncertainty for the fight between the U.S. and China, Bank of America economists Ethan Harris and Alexander Lin said in a Sept. 30 research report. Of those deadlines, what happens with Huawei's temporary general license is likely the most important unknown, they said. Huawei on Nov. 17 will be cut off from all U.S. exports, but "we expect an 'extend and pretend' scenario where Huawei remains on the 'entity list' but is allowed to keep buying US inputs."

The European Union is making adjustments to its safeguards on steel products implemented in July 2018 in response to U.S. Section 232 tariffs, the European Commission said in a Sept. 27 press release.

U.S. exporters say they are increasingly losing market share in China to European and Japanese companies as the trade war drags on, panelists said during a discussion at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event on Sept. 25. Some U.S. companies are also losing out on Chinese license approvals as foreign competitors get to skip the line, one trade lawyer said.