The Federal Maritime Commission is working on a notice of proposed rulemaking that could put in place a permanent process under which shippers and other companies in the cargo logistics industry can file charge complaints with the FMC. The FMC said it hopes to issue the rule in June 2025.

Brian Nelson, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, and Andrea Gacki, director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, will visit Columbus, Ohio, July 16 to discuss FinCEN’s new beneficial ownership information (BOI) reporting rule with small business owners. FinCEN Deputy Director Jimmy Kirby participated in a similar event in Lakewood, Colorado, last week. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently said her department is undertaking extensive efforts across the country to make small businesses aware of the BOI reporting requirement (see 2407090053).

CBP’s Baltimore Field Office intercepted 343 stolen vehicles, worth about $17.7 million, set to be exported from the U.S. in FY 2023, a 44% increase from the previous year, the agency said in a news release this month. CBP said 90% of the vehicles stopped by CBP Baltimore were destined to West Africa.

The Treasury Department is drafting revisions to its customer due diligence (CDD) rule and hopes to “get something out this fall,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said July 9.

The Bureau of Industry and Security is preparing to launch a survey of the pharmaceutical industry to gain a better understanding of the “supply chain network that underpins U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities,” the agency said in a July 9 news release. BIS will survey hundreds of U.S. manufacturers, distributors, suppliers and customers involved in the U.S. “active pharmaceutical ingredient industrial base” in part to identify supply chain vulnerabilities and better plan for potential supply shortages. The Department of Health and Human Services requested the survey.

The State Department this week urged companies to increase their due diligence efforts for supply chains that involve certain critical minerals from Rwanda and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, saying illegal trade in gold, tantalum and other minerals from the African Great Lakes Region “continues to play” a role in financing conflict in the region. In a “statement of concern,” the agency said companies trading in these critical minerals may be aiding human rights abuses, including forced labor.

Although China isn’t yet directly shipping weapons and other armaments to Russia’s military, Beijing is “making, in effect, investments in Russia's defense industrial base in ways that are allowing it to continue” its war against Ukraine, said Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking during a July 1 event hosted by the Brookings Institution. He said 70% of the machine tools and 90% of the microelectronics being imported by Russia are coming from China.

The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network proposed a new rule this week that it said will “explicitly require” banks and other financial institutions to have “effective, risk-based, and reasonably designed“ compliance programs to combat money laundering and terrorism financing. The agency’s proposal also would require them to put in place a risk assessment process and meet other “minimum” rules for their compliance programs.

The White House should do more to remove foreign trade barriers for U.S. services exports, enforce existing trade services agreements and take other steps to help the American services export industry, the President’s Export Council said in a letter earlier this month. The letter, written by council chair Mark Ein, said American services exports are “often subject to market access restrictions and discriminatory treatment as governments seek to favor their own services companies, and current “impediments are already significant and growing.”

The State Department recently launched an informal, voluntary network for the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) security partnership to share information with stakeholders who are outside the traditional defense industry, an agency official said June 21.