Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin should sanction Russians involved in ongoing interference in the 2020 U.S. elections, a group of Democratic senators said in a Sept. 3 letter. They pointed to the public release of information by the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center that describes activities of “Kremlin-linked actors” attempting to sway opinion about President Donald Trump's Democratic opponent in the presidential race, Joe Biden. “We thus urge you to draw upon the conclusions of the Intelligence Community to identify and target for sanctions all those determined to be responsible for ongoing election interference, including any actors within the government of the Russian Federation, any Russian actors determined to be directly responsible, and those acting on their behalf or providing material or financial support for their efforts,” they said. The group, led by Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, also provided Mnuchin “additional classified information through separate channels,” according to a news release.
Idaho's two senators and Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., have asked the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Agriculture Department to consider initiating a dispute with Mexico over the restriction on fresh potatoes from the U.S. The letter, sent Aug. 18, notes that Mexico had agreed to allow fresh potatoes to be sold beyond a 16-mile U.S.-Mexico border zone (see 14052305), but that Mexican potato interests sued to stop the liberalization. That case is still pending. A House Republican from Colorado asked the administration last year to push Mexico on this issue (see 1909270061).
A bipartisan group of senators urged the Trump administration to expand sanctions on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, saying current restrictions have not done enough to curb corruption and human rights abuses there. The sanctions should include additional designations of DRC government officials and increased restrictions on officials who are creating “new companies” to avoid U.S. sanctions, nine senators said in an Aug. 17 letter to Treasure Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Taiwan's an attractive free trading partner but not as important to exporters as China is. “I'm for a free trade agreement with Taiwan, but I wouldn't want that to stand in the way of a phase two deal with China,” he told reporters on a conference call Aug. 17. China sees Taiwan as a breakaway province, and considers it part of China, not an independent country. Taiwan's president recently said he'd like negotiations to begin on an FTA (see 2008130010), and 161 House members have argued for opening negotiations with Taiwan (see 1912200014).
The U.S. should continue to pursue sanctions on China and encourage allies to impose their own restrictions for the recent arrests of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, a bipartisan group of lawmakers said. In an Aug. 10 statement, commissioners of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, including CECC Chair Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., and Co-Chair Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said the United Nations Security Council should convene an “urgent meeting” to discuss Hong Kong’s so-called national security law (see 2008070039).
Three Republican senators threatened U.S. sanctions against a German port for helping to build Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline (see 2007150021), urging the port to stop providing “goods, services and support” for the project.” In an Aug. 5 letter to Fahrhafen Sassnitz GmbH, operator of Mukran Port, Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said the port should immediately stop supporting the Russian-flagged vessels Fortuna and Akademik Cherskiy.
Five senators introduced a bill to strengthen export controls on certain unmanned aircraft less than a month after the State Department loosened them. The measure, introduced Aug. 6, would block exports of certain drones to all countries except NATO members, Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. The senators said the legislation is designed to restrict sales to hostile Middle East countries, such as Saudi Arabia.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said the technical fixes to USMCA need to be done, and he hopes a technical fixes bill can pass the Senate by unanimous consent. The bill would allow refunds of merchandise processing fees in post-entry reconciliation (see 2007070056) and may also change treatment of foreign-trade zones, a change that those zones say is not a technical fix at all, but a policy change (see 2007200021).
The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls on Aug. 3 released a congressional notification transmittal sheet, detailing proposed arms sales, license amendments and license approvals from April through June. The sheet contains more than 40 proposed exports and license amendments.
House and Senate Democratic leaders subpoenaed four State Department officials and released parts of an interview with a former official that the lawmakers say raise questions about the administration’s controversial military sales to Gulf states last year (see 1907150033 and 1907300027). The interview -- a July 24 testimony by former State Department official Charles Faulkner -- points to a “small group” of agency officials who were “determined to ignore legitimate humanitarian concerns ... to ram through more than $8 billion in arms sales,” according to an Aug. 3 joint press release from House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Bob Menendez, D.-N.J.