Oct

27

Will Persian Carpets Soon Fly into the United States Again?

Posted by at 9:35 pm on October 27, 2010
Category: Iran Sanctions

Flying CarpetThe recently-passed Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act of 2010 (“CISADA”) ended the import of Persian rugs into the United States. According to this post in the Wall Street Journal‘s Corruption Currents blog, officials at the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), the office in the Treasury Department responsible for administering the Iran import bans, said that they have received a “surprisingly high number of calls” from people who want to import Persian carpets for personal use.

The post continues by suggesting that OFAC may indeed be inclined to permit imports of Persian carpets for personal use, either under an exception for imports of personal luggage and household goods or otherwise.

Alexandre Manfill, chief of compliance implementation at OFAC, hinted at recent anti-money laundering conference in Washington that, in fact, they do.

He said the office was working on an interpretation of the ban that would allow for the importation of carpets and pistachios for non-commercial use

Such exceptions would be fully consistent with CISADA. First CISADA, in section 103(b)(1)(B), provides that the exceptions provided in section 203(b) of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”) would still apply. Section 203(b)(4) permits “importation of accompanied baggage for personal use,” which would seem to include all the Persian carpets you can stuff in your luggage.

But what about importation of Persian rugs as “household goods” or for non-commercial use? Section 203(b) of IEEPA does not extend to non-commercial imports or household goods. As OFAC noted in the notice adopting the rule eliminating the general license for imports of Persian carpets and foodstuffs, Section 103(d) of CISADA permits OFAC to promulgate regulatory exceptions to the import ban. If such regulatory exceptions permit import of items from Iran for commercial use, the agency must submit a report to Congress certifying that the exception is in the national interest. This gives OFAC fairly broad authority to create broad exceptions for imports for non-commercial use, and it looks like it may well do so for non-commercial importation of Persian carpets.

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Copyright © 2010 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
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One Comment:

This is quite a turn for OFAC: Once upon a time, I had a client who wanted to send back rugs to his mom and family to repair, but in what seemed a typically sensless OFAC, the license request was denied, even though OFAC admitted that new rugs, or even old rugs, could be imported.

Kind of makes me wonder what kind of lobby the Iranian rug makers have. I suspect its one of those trade associations with offices in a nice Virginia suburb like Langley.

Comment by Mike Deal on October 27th, 2010 @ 11:11 pm