Lawyers and financial executives say the ambiguously worded rules and guidance over how they will be enforced have sown confusion over how to avoid legal and financial penalties.
The hastily assembled five-page executive order signed by Trump last November banned the purchase of shares in 31 Chinese companies believed to be tied to the People’s Liberation Army, including businesses like China Mobile Ltd. and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. However the order did not specify whether it also affected subsidiaries and affiliates of those companies — a group that includes the U.S. shares of the three Chinese telecommunications companies NYSE has said it will delist.
That drew recriminations from anti-China hawks in the Republican party and prompted an intervention from the Treasury. The Office of Foreign Assets Control , which oversees U.S. sanctions guidance and enforcement, has since said that buying shares with similar names to the 31 businesses named in Trump’s executive order would be banned. But that too has created a problem for investors who must now judge how close the names of securities they own are to the list provided by the White House.
Investment and trade are important in global economies. Relations between nations are important on a great number of levels. Guarding against internal interference from without is the business of every country. A complex problem.