The United States lifted sanctions^[1] on a subsidiary of COSCO Shipping Corporation Ltd., the Chinese shipping giant. Last September, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on several COSCO subsidiaries for transporting Iranian crude oil in violation of the U.S. sanctions regime. The move disrupted COSCO’s regular trading patterns and put pressure on China during trade negotiations with the White House.

In a separate case, OFAC settled with Eagle Shipping International (USA) LLC. for apparent violations of sanctions imposed on a Burmese entity, Myawaddy Trading Limited. Eagle Shipping agreed to pay $1.125 million in penalties.^[2]

OFAC also added several entities to the Specially Designated Persons List:

• The Russian rail service, Grand Service Express, that connects Russia with Crimea.

• The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.

• Multiple Venezuelan aircrafts owned by Venezuelan state-owned oil firm Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A.