The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued an April 16 guidance clarifying available humanitarian trade exemptions for U.S. sanctions regimes that target Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Ukraine/Russia. The guidance outlines the specific exemptions available for personal protective equipment and stresses that the U.S. will not target legitimate humanitarian trade to sanctioned countries. The guidance comes amid calls from current and former lawmakers and trade experts for more clarity surrounding OFAC humanitarian waivers (see 2004100044, 2004070028 and 2004010019), which has caused confusion among industry (see 2004140027).

CBP and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are expected to issue formal guidance in coming days on the recently announced export ban on personal protective equipment, a CBP official said during an April 16 conference call. “It's undergoing final U.S. government review before publication,” he said. “There's still discussions being held at the highest levels in terms of some of the points. We're hoping we can get this resolved today.” A recent internal CBP memo about the ban has created confusion around the issue (see 2004150051).

U.S. restrictions on exports of personal protective equipment are not expected to have a significant impact on U.S. industry, particularly because most U.S. companies produce those goods overseas, trade observers said. Companies have been more heavily impacted by recently announced Chinese restrictions on medical exports, which have caused customs delays and a backlog of shipments, the U.S.-China Business Council said.

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Although the U.S. provides broad exemptions for humanitarian exports to Iran, the exemptions continue to be a source of confusion for industry, which is hindering humanitarian trade with Iran, said Katherine Bauer, a former senior policy adviser for Iran at the Treasury Department. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control may issue guidance to clarify the exemptions, Bauer said, but the Trump administration is unlikely to make any major changes to its Iranian sanctions regulations.

The U.S. should introduce support measures for U.S. technology industries that are “too critical to fail,” especially those competing for market share with China, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said in an April 13 report. As the Commerce Department seeks to restrict sales of emerging technologies to counter Chinese technology theft (see 2004010007), Congress should task the administration with expanding funding for research in those key fields -- including robotics, artificial intelligence and semiconductors -- and target it to “maximize commercialization” of the technologies in the United States. Congress should also support an “industrial investment bank” to increase advanced production in the U.S. and “encourage” the relocation of critical technology production from China to the U.S., the ITIF said.

After current and former lawmakers asked the Treasury Department to clarify its stance on humanitarian exports to sanctioned countries, the agency pushed back on accusations that sanctions are stopping those exports, saying it does not target legitimate exported aid. Some of those accusations are marred by a misunderstanding of Treasury’s general licenses and exemptions, said sanctions lawyer Doug Jacobson: they do allow a broad range of humanitarian exports to countries like Iran.

Recently announced restrictions on exports of personal protective equipment (PPE) only apply to commercial shipments, and exports to Canada and Mexico are exempt from the policy, said CBP in a memo dated April 9. The National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America included the memo in an April 9 email on COVID-19 developments.

As industry sees an increase in parties invoking force majeure clauses (see 2002140027) due to the COVID-19 pandemic response measures, courts will more closely review force majeure disputes to determine whether companies are simply trying to escape a difficult economic situation, commercial litigation lawyers said. Before invoking the clause, parties should make sure compliance with their contracts is impossible due to the pandemic. “The courts … are going to be very astute to look for people trying to use COVID-19 as a force majeure excuse where actually the contract was just not economic for them anyway,” Sean Upson, a lawyer with U.K.-based Stewarts law firm, said during an April 9 webinar.

The European Union director general said the union will be scaling back export restrictions on personal protective gear, and she said that the EU is still trying to convince individual countries to lift restrictions on ventilators. Sabine Weyand was speaking from Brussels on a webcast hosted by the Washington International Trade Association on April 9. Weyand said the temporary EU restrictions will expire April 25, and that officials are reviewing the list, as they have realized not all PPE is scarce.