If the upcoming negotiations between West Coast ports and their dockworkers’ union “go poorly,” U.S. shippers and traders could face new, worsening logistics delays, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said May 23. The chamber said “stakes are especially high” for talks between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, which began May 10 and need to reach a resolution before their contract expires in July (see 2111240052).

A few days after the majority of senators said they want Taiwan to be included in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (see 2205180034), U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai issued a readout of a May 20 meeting with a top Taiwanese official that made no mention of IPEF. Tai said she met with Taiwan’s Minister-Without-Portfolio John Deng, and said that they discussed "opportunities to deepen the economic relationship, advance mutual trade priorities based on shared values, and promote innovation and inclusive economic growth for their workers and businesses." It said they also discussed how Taiwan and the U.S. both want to fight forced labor, and how important supply chain traceability is.

The State Department approved a potential $691 million sale of military equipment to Egypt, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said May 19. The sale includes “TOW 2A Radio Frequency (RF) Missiles” and related equipment. The principal contractor will be Raytheon Missiles & Defense.

The State Department last week approved up to $100 million in additional emergency military assistance to Ukraine. The move will authorize the U.S.’s 10th drawdown of defense articles, services and military training from DOD, the State Department said, bringing total U.S. military assistance to Ukraine to about $3.9 billion since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

The Los Angeles and Long Beach ports again postponed by a week a new surcharge meant to incentivize the movement of dwelling containers (see 2110280031), the two ports announced May 20. The ports had planned to begin imposing the fee in November 2021 but have postponed it each week since. The latest extension delays the effective date until May 27.

A federal government payment website, Pay.gov, will undergo “critical maintenance activity” from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT May 21 and may be unavailable to users, the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls said. DDTC said the outage will affect users paying registration fees during that window. Questions or concerns should be directed to Pay.gov customer support at 800-624-1373 or pay.gov.clev@clev.frb.org.

The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls released its notifications to Congress of recently proposed export licenses. The January through March notices feature arms sales to numerous countries, including South Korea, Qatar, India, Saudi Arabia, Australia and the United Arab Emirates.

Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson is still awaiting approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. for its acquisition of American telecom company Vonage (see 2202180020) but is hopeful the deal will go through. The company hopes to complete the acquisition during the second quarter of this year, an Ericsson spokesperson said in a May 18 email. “We are fully committed to moving ahead to close the deal,” the spokesperson said.

The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls will launch an updated licensing application this summer in the Defense Export Control and Compliance System, the agency said in a notice last week. DDTC is updating the application to work in a new software platform, “providing greater flexibility, security and administration of the application to the support team,” the agency said. The update is a “significant step in DDTC’s effort to continuously modernize the DECCS application suite.” DDTC will hold a webinar June 9 to discuss the update, including a demonstration of the application, an overview of how it affects DDTC partners and a timeline for its release.

The Los Angeles and Long Beach ports again postponed by a week a new surcharge meant to incentivize the movement of dwelling containers (see 2110280031), the two ports announced May 13. The ports had planned to begin imposing the fee in November 2021 but have postponed it each week since. The latest extension delays the effective date until May 20.