Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., announced late April 17 that she supports a newly modified House proposal that would ban TikTok in the U.S. unless China’s ByteDance divested the popular social media application.

An investigation by the House Select Committee on China found that U.S. financial institutions facilitated the investment of $6.5 billion last year in 63 Chinese companies that the U.S. government has “blacklisted or otherwise red-flagged” for advancing China’s military capabilities or supporting its human rights abuses, the committee said April 18.

Although all members of the House Ways and Means Committee supported a bill renewing the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program, the bill proceeded to the House floor on a split bipartisan vote of 17-24 as Democrats unsuccessfully called to include an extension of the Trade Adjustment Assistance for Workers program, which lapsed in 2022.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and three other House Republicans urged the State Department on April 17 to permanently stop waiving sanctions for certain types of nuclear cooperation with Iran.

The House of Representatives voted 410-13 on April 16 to approve a bill that would impose property-blocking and visa sanctions on people in Syria who produce and traffic the stimulant drug Captagon.

The two top lawmakers on the House Select Committee on China on April 16 asked the State Department to “intensify and elevate its global diplomatic efforts” to ensure the EU passes an agreement to ban imports of goods made with forced labor.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 16 approved a bill that would extend the U.S. government’s authority to impose sanctions on the Nicaraguan regime through the end of 2028. The Restoring Sovereignty and Human Rights in Nicaragua Act also would expand sanctions to include Nicaraguan officials responsible for human rights violations against religious believers, and it would direct the State Department to enforce sectoral sanctions.

The full House and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee each approved several Iran sanctions bills this week, reflecting increasing congressional concern about Tehran's behavior.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y, criticized the Biden administration last week for reportedly allowing Intel to export “cutting-edge chip technology” to China’s Huawei for use in the new Matebook X Pro computer, even though Huawei has been on the Commerce Department’s Entity List since 2019 (see 1905160072).

Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, introduced a bill last week that would require the Treasury Department to submit quarterly reports to Congress on the number of businesses that have met FinCEN’s new beneficial ownership information (BOI) reporting rule.