Nearly 90 Republican lawmakers urged the Commerce Department March 5 to rescind a Biden administration interim final rule (IFR) restricting firearms exports, saying the controls hurt American businesses.
Ola Craft, who left the government earlier this year as director of strategic trade and nonproliferation with the National Security Council, has joined Lowenstein Sandler as a senior trade adviser in its global trade and national security practice, the firm announced. Craft held senior export control roles in the Bureau of Industry and Security and the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls before joining the NSC in 2024.
Marissa Cloutier, a former government official who worked on foreign military sales and State Department export controls, has joined K&L Gates as a national security policy adviser, the firm announced. Cloutier was most recently the chief of the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls’ Compliance and Civil Enforcement Division. She left the government earlier this year while on a special assignment as the Air Force’s foreign military sales country director for Latin America.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, reintroduced a bill March 3 to sanction foreign persons who engage in or facilitate forced organ harvesting in China. The legislation was referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It is a companion to a bill that Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., reintroduced in late February (see 2502250056).
The State Department has officially redesignated the Yemen-based Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization, it said in a Federal Register notice this week. The designation is effective March 5, the date the notice was scheduled to be published.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned Iran-based Behrouz Parsarad, who was the administrator of Nemesis, a former online darknet marketplace that allowed users to trade illegal drugs and services. OFAC said Parsarad created Nemesis and “held full control over the marketplace and its virtual currency wallets,” earning millions of dollars from the fees he charged users with every transaction. The agency said Nemesis was taken down in 2024 after an “international law enforcement operation.”
U.S. oil company Chevron will have until 12:01 a.m. ET on April 3 to wind down certain oil activities in Venezuela that had been authorized by an Office of Foreign Assets Control general license, OFAC said March 4. Updated General License 41A, which replaces GL 41, authorizes certain transactions “ordinarily incident and necessary to the wind down of transactions” related to Chevron’s joint ventures in Venezuela involving state-owned energy company Petroleos de Venezuela.
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China and Canada announced new retaliatory trade restrictions against the U.S. -- and Mexico announced plans to soon release its own set of countermeasures -- after President Donald Trump's administration on March 4 increased tariffs on goods from all three countries. Industry associations said the counter-duties could damage a range of American export industries, including shippers of agricultural products, spirits and other commercial goods.
The Trump administration plans to build international support for using sanctions to counter Iran’s nuclear weapons program, deputy secretary of state nominee Christopher Landau said March 4.