U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said she's ready to trigger Article 16 if talks over Northern Ireland with the EU fall through. In an opinion piece in The Telegraph, Truss said that to resolve the impasse, she may override parts of the post-Brexit agreement that impose a de facto customs border down the Irish Sea, making trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. more difficult. Truss is meeting her EU counterpart Jan. 13, and used her Telegraph piece to lay out her priorities.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, after speaking with Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis Jan. 5, said that the U.S. supports Lithuania as it faces economic coercion from China, and that the U.S. wants to work with the European Union "to address coercive diplomatic and economic behavior. They discussed the importance to addressing our shared challenges through a close, transatlantic partnership that embraces and reflects U.S. and EU jointly-held values, which can be supported in part through the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council." China stopped allowing Lithuanian goods to enter China after Lithuania publicly supported Taiwan's independence (see 2112090012).
U.K. exporters reached deals worth nearly $95 million due to trade shows in South Korea sponsored by the Department for International Trade, the DIT said. Exports to South Korea from the U.K. jumped 9% in the June year-over-year comparison. The trade shows were part of DIT's Pavilion showcase series, which includes stalls set up for U.K. companies to show off their goods, DIT said. Companies that credit these shows as leading to deals with South Korean firms include Ceres Power, Intelligent Energy and Survitec.
The European Commission this week released an updated list of dual-use items and an updated correlation list between certain European Union tariff codes and goods that are subject to dual-use export restrictions. The updated list includes nine parts covering goods ranging from nuclear materials to electronics to aerospace and propulsion products, and the updated correlation list includes thousands of product codes.
The U.K. added one individual and one entity to its ISIL (Da'esh) and al-Qaida sanctions regime, in a Jan. 4 financial sanctions notice. The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation placed ISIL senior member Ashraf Al-Qizani and Jund Al-Khilafah, ISIL's wing in Tunisia established in November 2014, on the sanctions list. The two new listings will be subject to an asset freeze and a travel ban. In the same notice, OFSI also delisted the following from the ISIL sanctions regime: Mevlut Kar, Denis Mamadou Gerhard Cuspert, Nayef Salam Muhammad Ujaym Al-Hababi, Turki Mubarak Abdullah Ahmad Al-Binali and Tuah Febriwansyah.
The European Union General Court dropped the sanctions listing of former Ukrainian Minister of Revenue and Taxes Oleksandr Viktorovych Klymenko, annulling actions in March maintaining the designation, according to an unofficial translation. The ruling marks the fifth of its kind. The European Council used Ukraine's investigation of Klymenko for the embezzlement of public funds as the basis for the sanctions listing. The General Court, as it has done in the previous four rulings, said that the council hadn't adequately identified that the investigating judge had respected Klymenko's rights of defense or that the proceedings were being carried out in a reasonable time. This decision ends the matter because the Council didn't renew the sanctions listing in September 2021, an action that occurred after Klymenko in April 2021 initiated the latest petition for annulment of his listing.
The U.K. Department for International Trade updated the commodity codes for which antidumping and ccountervailing duties are applicable under the AD/CVD orders on glass fiber products from China. Also updated were the commodity codes for countervailing duties on glass fiber products from Egypt. It also updated the commodity codes for the tariff-rate quotas on steel products.
Switzerland's Federal Customs Administration officially changed its name Jan. 1 to the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security, the Swiss Federal Council said Jan. 3.
Switzerland dropped former Congo official Jean-Claude Kazembe Musonda from its sanctions regime, the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs said. Musonda was the former governor of Haut-Katanga and leader of CONAKAT, the Confederation of Tribal Associations of Katanga. He died in July, resulting in his delisting by the EU Dec. 10 (see 2112130012).
The EU is soliciting feedback on an upcoming revision to its food and beverage labeling requirements, USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service said Dec. 23, which could affect U.S. imports. The European Commission is specifically seeking comments on proposed changes to “front-of-pack nutrition labeling, nutrient profiling criteria to restrict claims, origin labeling, date marking, and alcoholic beverages labeling,” USDA said. Earlier this year, European packaging industry groups asked the EC to create harmonized labeling requirements (see 2108180055). The comment period closes March 7.