The Senate Finance Committee voted unanimously to approve the nomination of Doug McKalip to be chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The full Senate must vote on his nomination before he can start the job.

Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., told U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai that they do not want the World Trade Organization Appellate Body to be resurrected. The WTO no longer has binding dispute settlement, because members can appeal into the void if they do not like the results of a case in Geneva.

Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, introduced a bill whose text was published Aug. 26 that would forbid the transfer of arms to Ukraine unless the administration certifies Ukraine isn't securing or attempting to secure bilateral assistance from China. It has no co-sponsors. Shortly before the invasion of Ukraine, China declared its alliance with Russia had no limits.

The HARD ROCK Act, or the Homeland Acceleration of Recovering Deposits and Renewing Onshore Critical Keystones, would require the Pentagon to report on the benefits and risks of proposed legislation to increase the availability of strategic and critical materials that are sourced primarily from China or Russia. That report also would talk about how it would be helpful to integrate the industrial base with allies "with respect to technology transfer, socioeconomic procurement requirements, and export controls."

The State Department should sanction Argentina's Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her immediate family for corruption, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in an Aug. 25 letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Cruz said the evidence against Fernandez de Kirchner is “public, credible, and now backed by Argentina’s judicial system,” adding that the Biden administration should “expeditiously impose sanctions” mandated under the 2022 government funding package that passed earlier this year. The State Department didn’t comment.

The Biden administration should update Congress on the ongoing Iran nuclear deal negotiations, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said. “It is vital Congress have a clear view over how any agreement with Iran does or does not address the full scope of Iran’s malign activities,” he wrote in an Aug. 23 letter to the White House, in which he criticized the administration for its “lack of recent engagement with Congress” on the talks. “I urge you to provide a series of briefings to Congress” as “soon as possible,” he said.

Congress should revise export control laws to ensure “naive bureaucrats” don’t prioritize commercial sales over national security, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said this week. Rubio, referencing a Wall Street Journal report that said the U.S. approved 94% of license applications for technology exports to China in 2020, said the numbers show that “President Biden refuses to take the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party seriously" and that “the situation is growing worse."

A new Senate bill would add USDA to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. and broaden disclosure requirements for land purchases by foreign entities. The Security and Oversight of International Landholdings Act, set to be introduced by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., will “provide oversight and transparency of purchases of U.S. agricultural land that threaten national security,” the lawmaker said this month, and will require CFIUS reviews of “agriculture real estate purchases by certain foreign entities.” Other lawmakers also have proposed adding the agriculture secretary to CFIUS (see 2106010003).

The Biden administration should withdraw from nuclear negotiations with Iran after DOJ charged an Iranian military official in a plot to assassinate John Bolton, a former U.S. national security adviser, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said. “The latest ‘deal’ reportedly includes significant concessions on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) probe of Iran’s past nuclear work and [Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] sanctions,” McCaul said in Aug. 14 statement. “Between these dangerous proposals and the mounting evidence of Iran’s terrorist activity on U.S. soil, I urge the administration to finally withdraw from talks and shift its focus to compelling Iran to stop its malign activities.” A State Department spokesperson didn't comment. McCaul previously has urged the administration to abandon any attempts at returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (see 2208040012).

Congress should be taking steps to authorize more foreign military sales to Taiwan and speed up agency approvals for those exports, said Lara Crouch, a Republican staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Crouch, speaking during a Heritage Foundation event last week, said the committee will next month mark up the Taiwan Policy Act, which would include more foreign military financing for the island, authorize a war reserve stockpile for Taiwan and fast-track sales to Taiwan under the Foreign Military Sales Program.