Understanding US Trade Controls

This article examines the conflict between the American Congress and Presidency in US trade embargo policy during the Truman and Reagan years. After reviewing two cases of legislative‐executive confrontation over trade embargoes against the Soviet Union in the late‐1940s and early‐1950s and South Africa in the 1980s, it concludes that Congress has been successful in modifying presidential policy‐making that it believes does not serve the national interest. This is due to its powerful position in the American political process as the initiator of legislation. Its law making powers have allowed it to review executive foreign policy decisions forcing the Presidency to change its approach to particular policy concerns.

The US-based Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has 350,000 members worldwide, including 2,000 members in Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and the Sudan. Because the US has a trade embargo against these nations, the IEEE has felt obliged to deny these members all the goods and services prohibited by US trade laws.

An analysis of the 1980 US trade embargo on exports of soybeans and soybean products to the Soviet Union: a spatial price equilibrium approach

United States Unilateralism and the World Trade Organization

Significance Vietnam has a policy of ‘cooperation and struggle’ towards China. The two sides have robust economic ties, but there are long-standing political and cultural tensions between them. Impacts Vietnam will continue to champion diplomatic neutrality and refuse to take sides in great power competition. US trade sanctions on China should benefit Hanoi, as more Chinese factories will be forced to move offshore. Although various trade agreements will help diversify its trade base, Vietnam will remain reliant on Chinese supply chains.

Navigating the complex, varying and, at times, conflicting regimes governing export controls and economic sanctions presents unique compliance challenges for globalised businesses. Export controls and economic sanctions address related, but distinct, public policy objectives. This paper explores the intersection between the two and proffers best practises for businesses to manage their export control and economic sanctions risks. Section 2 sets out a brief taxonomy of terms and concepts. Section 3 explains the global context for the measures discussed, the Canadian regulatory frameworks and the intersection between the two regulatory regimes. Section 4 discusses ‘best practices’ for counsel and businesses to manage the complex compliance issues arising out of these measures.

In the year 2016, according to estimates by the Chinese Bureau of Statistics, joint ventures (JV) with foreign partners contributed over 25% of foreign investment inflows in China. To the extent these JV help emerging economies such as China become more competitive and innovative is a positive consequence that is widely welcomed by the international community. However, the alleged forced technology transfer in these ventures is the Achilles heel that has evoked various retaliatory responses from governments worldwide. The United States recently studied the issue in its section 301 investigation and subsequently implemented various measures, including tariffs worth over USD 250 billion, which led to the onset of the so-called US-China trade war. The European Union (EU), on the other hand, called for the regulation of forced technology transfer and resorted to a more restrained manner by officially filing a complaint before the World Trade Organization (WTO). The EU’s complaint confirms the onerous set of conditions – such as forced technology transfer for approval of investments in strategic areas such as electric cars and the biotech sector – that stand in clear contrast to the China’s commitments when it first joined the WTO. For the companies, particularly those in the high tech sector, intellectual property is a key source of competitive advantage. Knowingly sharing this source of advantage means that rational firms that seek profit maximization derive some unrivalled gains through these collaborations. Against this mixed backdrop, using inter-disciplinary insights from law and business strategy, this article, a part of series of articles on the subject, critically assesses the contemporary debate and different approaches to China’s practice of ‘discriminatory licensing’ and ‘forced technology transfer’. Technology Transfer, Discriminatory licensing, Joint Ventures, section 301 US Trade Act, European Union, Market Economy Status, State Owned Enterprises, WTO

Economic sanctions and trade sanctions have been utilised as diplomatic tools for many years. Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the subsequent illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022, the extent and scope of economic and trade sanctions have expanded significantly. Financial institutions (FIs) remain at the forefront of managing the risks associated with these sanctions, both to meet regulatory requirements and expectations and to manage the risks presented by their client portfolio, product and service offering and jurisdictional exposure. This paper outlines the increasing complexity of sanctions and highlights some of the key evasion typologies that exist. This paper also considers how these typologies can be adduced into an FI’s financial crime risk management framework,the external and internal sources available to support that process and the key role that the enterprise-wide risk assessment (EWRA) plays within the financial crime risk management framework. Finally, this paper considers how sanctions risk should not be considered and assessed in isolation, but that like many financial crime risks, a holistic approach should be adopted by FIs to identify, assess and manage these risks. This article is included in The Business and Management Collection (https://hstalks.com/business/).

This paper examines the debate on capital costs for publicly owned electric utilities in Canada, especially the effect of government guarantees on hydro borrowing. An examination of the borrowings of Hydro-Quebec and 46 American utilities from 1980-86 shows no significant effect of the provincial guarantee on Hydro-Quebec's interest rates during this period.

The China‐US accord from the WTO is supposed to increase US exports to China and thus improve the bilateral trade balance in favor of the US, but there is no guarantee that this will happen unless both countries resolve the following long-standing disputes: merchandise trade imbalance; US sanctions against China and technology export control; the alleged currency manipulation; and the human right issues. Among these the most important is trade imbalance. Due to different calculating methods, there is a big discrepancy between the two official figures. This paper argues that the US Customs, which exclude any China‐US trade flow through Hong Kong, distort the bilateral trade balance and grossly overstate the US trade deficit with China. Moreover, large portions of the goods exported from China to the US are processing products, and the profit margin that China earns is very low. Taking all this into account, the US trade imbalance with China is significantly smaller than is claimed or compared to that with Japan. There is no reason for politicizing this issue and poisoning the Sino‐US political relationship.

EDITORS OF PEER-REVIEWED SCIENtific journals are breathing sighs of relief following an April 2 ruling that should keep the US government out of the editing process. Until last September, most scientific journals believed that federal embargo restrictions from sanctioned countries did not apply to scientific publishing. But a decision last September, following a rule-clarification request by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), threw the matter up in the air. In that ruling, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said journals could publish manuscripts from authors living in countries facing US trade embargoes—Cuba, Iran, Libya, and Sudan— but could not edit such papers. The government argued that the editorial process, including peer review, was considered a “service” which added economic value to a manuscript and was thus prohibited under the International Emergency Economic Power’s Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act.

Extension of US trade embargoes to science editing

Sanctions on health in Cuba

In FIAMM and Fedon the European Court of Justice has ruled that Community firms hit by US trade sanctions authorized by the WTO Dispute Settlement Body are not entitled to compensation from EC political institutions. The article discusses the cases in the background of current debates on the attitude of the Court of Justice towards international law and, more broadly, on European legal pluralism. From this standpoint, it provides a critical assessment of the legal issues involved in this litigation - internal status of WTO obligations, scope for manoeuvre of EC political institutions in international trade relations, liability for unlawful and lawful conduct - and offers a comparative analysis of its possible solutions, suggesting that a finding of liability for lawful conduct would have been a preferable outcome in both theoretical and substantive terms.

At present, the trade sanctions imposed by the United States on China are mainly reflected in huge import tariffs and technological blockades, which seriously weakens the market competitiveness of Chinese goods in the US domestic market, the control of technology imports and exports and the disruption of the supply chain are curbing the development of Chinese scientific research products as well. Even so, amid all these risks and challenges, opportunities for industrial restructuring and innovation have emerged in our country, leading to the reorganization and upgrading of the current industrial chain structure. The changes have also enabled small and medium-sized enterprises to see new opportunities. This paper focuses on the crucial period from 2020 to 2025 when the trade pattern between China and the United States undergoes drastic changes. It elaborates on the research from three aspects: specific changes in the trade pattern, the dimension of industrial chain layout adjustment, and the dual-track response strategies of the government and enterprises. Aiming to analyze the adjustment of the domestic industrial chain structure caused by the changes in China's relevant trade policies in response to the US trade war and revealing the difficulties and challenges that small and medium-sized enterprises may encounter during their transformation and the corresponding countermeasures.