On June 24, 2019, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) added five Chinese entities to the Entity List: Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology, Sugon, and its affiliates, Higon, Chengdu Haiguang Integrated Circuit, and Chengdu Haiguang Microelectronics Technology. The final rule announcing the addition also includes an extensive list of aliases for these entities.
On Tuesday June 4, 2019, the Trump Administration announced additional changes to its Cuba policy, further restricting group people-to-people educational travel and limiting the types of aircraft and vessels authorized to travel to Cuba on temporary sojourn. Tuesday’s actions are intended to prevent travel from the United States to Cuba from enriching the Cuban military, intelligence, and security services. These changes, which took effect on June 5, 2019, are a further step toward implementation of the National Security Presidential Memorandum of June 16, 2017 “Strengthening the Policy of the United States Toward Cuba” and the Administration’s intent to restrict non-family travel to Cuba as announced by the President on April 17, 2019. Please see our blog posts covering these prior developments here and here.
On May 8, 2019, President Trump issued Executive Order 13871 (the “Iran Metals EO”) imposing sanctions on the iron, steel, aluminum, and cooper sectors of Iran subject to a 90-day wind-down period that will expire on August 6, 2019. Although the sale, supply or transfer to/from Iran of steel and aluminum is already targeted by Section 1245 of the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act of 2012, the Iran Metals EO expands upon those sanctions and further targets the Iranian iron and copper sectors.
On April 17, 2019, the Trump Administration announced several decisions that mark a significant shift in US policy toward Cuba, most notably by declaring that the United States will no longer suspend Title III of the LIBERTAD Act of 1996, which is also known as the Helms-Burton Act.