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Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating two individuals and five entities that have facilitated weapons procurement for Ansarallah, commonly referred to as the Houthis. OFAC is also designating one individual and one company, as well as identifying one vessel, that have facilitated the shipment of commodities, the sale of which provides an important funding stream to the Houthis that aids in their weapons procurement.
The United States last year imported 3 billion pounds of UCO, half of which came from China – up from a total of 200 million pounds imported in 2020. A bipartisan group of senators is calling on the Biden Administration to address this surge in imports.
The Treasury Department reported yesterday that no countries currently meet the definition of currency manipulation, but Japan has been returned to the list of countries to watch.
In its semi-annual Report on Macroeconomic and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States, Treasury concluded that no major US trading partner manipulated the rate of exchange between its currency and the US dollar for purposes of preventing effective balance of payments adjustments or gaining unfair competitive advantage in international trade during the four quarters through December 2023.
Rhonda Schmidtlein is the new Chair of the International Trade Commission, replacing David Johanson, whose term as Chair expired on June 16. She previously served as Chair from January 13, 2017, through June 16, 2018.
The outgoing chair of the World Trade Organization’s Council for Trade in Services presented many recommendations yesterday for “reinvigorating” the work in services trade, which appears to have become a casualty due to the pursuit of joint statement initiatives instead of multilateral processes, said people familiar with the developments.
Sharp divisions marked an informal meeting convened by Brazil at the World Trade Organization to discuss the permanent solution for public stockholding programs for food security, with one country saying that there is no legitimacy to the Brazilian informal process, according to people familiar with the discussions.
The informal meeting appears to have been embroiled over procedural issues, after India challenged the “legitimacy” of the process, said people familiar with the developments.
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