U.S. sanctions against Belarus under the Export Administration Regulations

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the U.S. Commerce Department released for publication in the Federal Register a final rule adding new license requirements and review policies for Belarus to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to render Belarus subject to the same sanctions that were imposed on Russia under the EAR effective February 24, 2022. Read TradeNewsFlash

With this final rule [PDF 388 KB] (59 pages), the new sanctions:

• Impose new Commerce Control List (CCL)-based license requirements for Belarus
• Revise the two “foreign direct product” rules (FDP rules) that are specific to Russia and Russian military end-users to make them also applicable to Belarus and Belarusian military end-users
• Specify a license review policy of denial applicable to all of the license requirements on Belarus that are being added in this rule, with certain limited exceptions
• Significantly restrict the use of EAR license exceptions; expand the existing military end-use and military end-user control scope to include Belarus for all items “subject to the EAR” other than food and medicine designated EAR99
• Add two new Belarusian entities to the entity list as military end-users
• Impose a license requirement for nuclear nonproliferation items for exports and reexports to Belarus and removes Belarus from Country Group A:4 under the EAR

In addition, for Belarus and Russia, the final rule amends the availability of License Exceptions AVS* and ENC* and includes clarifying guidance on the availability of CCD.

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