While Fulfilled by Amazon merchants have long taken advantage of the duty-free treatment of small shipments, Amazon's own merchandise sales have customarily involved the payment of tax and duty, creating an opening for the Chinese e-tailers Shein and Temu. Not for long.   Wednesday, Amazon announced a new channel for its platform which will sell consumer goods and clothing direclty from China to US customers.  Eliminating the US warehousing nexus puts the Seattle-based merchant on equal footing with its Chinese rivals, in terms of landed cost.

Friday, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global standard-setting body for anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism and proliferation (AML/CFT/CPF), concluded its sixth and final Plenary under the Singaporean Presidency. During the Plenary, the FATF took several key actions, including adopting Grey Listing Monaco and Venezuela and Mutual Evaluation Reports (MERs) for India and Kuwait, agreeing to publish a report on non-financial gatekeeper facilitation of corruption, and discussing the priorities of the incoming Mexican FATF Presidency.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council precedent, which required courts to defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of laws during rulemaking. Friday's decision, made with a 6-3 vote along ideological lines, reduces the authority of executive agencies and raises questions about future regulatory actions across the administrative state..

The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced a proposed rule to strengthen and modernize financial institutions’ anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) programs.  While financial institutions have long maintained AML/CFT programs under existing regulations, Friday's  proposed rule would amend those regulations to explicitly require that such programs be effective, risk-based, and reasonably designed, enabling financial institutions to focus their resources and attention in a manner consistent with their risk profiles. 

The Board of Directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) approved a $50 million financing package to small business ESS Inc. under the Make More in America (MMIA) Initiative to finance the construction of several new long-duration battery storage production lines at ESS Tech’s Wilsonville, Oregon facility.

Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published its first quarterly update of the boycott Requester List. This list notifies companies, financial institutions, freight forwarders, individuals, and other U.S. persons of potential sources of certain boycott-related requests they may receive during the regular course of business. The updated public list of entities who have been identified as having made a boycott-related request in reports received by BIS includes 57 additions. BIS has also removed 127 entities.

After 20 years of lackluster results building commercial vessels for Jones Act trade, Norwegian investment group Aker ASA is selling its Philadelphia shipbuilding operations to Korea's Hanwa Group for $100 million. Philly Shipyard supplies around 50% of the largest U.S. commercial vessels, including tankers and container ships. In addition, Philly Shipyard constructs training vessels for the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD).  

PetroChina International America Inc. (PCIA) has entered into an agreement to pay a fine and monetary forfeiture totaling $14.5 million for violations of U.S. export law, including cargos misclassified and/or undervalued at the time of export and then entered into AES.

Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today announced a $538,000 settlement with Mondo TV, S.p.a. an Italian animation company for 18 apparent violations of the North Korea Sanctions Regulations. Between May 2019 and November 2021, Mondo remitted approximately $537,939 to a Government of North Korea-owned studio in payment for outsourced animation work. In doing so, Mondo caused U.S. financial institutions to process wire transfers that contained the blocked property interests of the Government of North Korea and to export financial services to North Korea.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco traveled to Brussels last week to lead the U.S. delegation at the U.S.-EU Justice and Home Affairs Ministerial. The Joint Statement from the Ministerial noted that both sides focused on addressing irregular migration, with a view to fight migrant smuggling and trafficking networks, building on the call to action of the Global Alliance to Counter Migrant Smuggling launched in November 2023.

Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Tuesday sanctioned nearly 50 entities and individuals that constitute multiple branches of a sprawling “shadow banking” network used by Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL) and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) The entities, including cover companies based in Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the Marshall Islands have been used to gain illicit access to the international financial system and process the equivalent of billions of dollars since 2020.

The European Council adopted Monday a 14th package of economic and individual restrictive measures on Russia. The package includes restrictive measures on additional 116 individuals and entities , as well as sectoral measures on Energy, Third-Country Subsidiaries and other Anti-Circumvention measures, Financial Communications Systems and Defense Industrial Base, Political Activities, Port Access for specific vessels, dual-use and commodity trade controls, as well as legal protections for sanctions compliance and intellectual property.

Unlicensed exports of fruit flies genetically modified to produce a subunit of a controlled toxin drew Indiana University a  penalty from the  Commerce Department.   As part of a settlement agreement, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued an order imposing an administrative penalty on Indiana University (IU) related to exports by IU’s Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center (BDSC).  

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.

The US Trade Representative’s Office is seeking public comments on the trade track of the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity. The APEP is a US-led initiative that will include Barbados, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Uruguay. Negotiations have not yet formally begun. In the meantime, USTR is looking to hear from the public on US interests and priorities, in order to develop trade-related lines of effort in the trade track of the Partnership.