Bidenera

With Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim (left) by his side, U.S. President Donald Trump oversees the signing of a ceasefire agreement between Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul (second from right) and Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet (right) on the sidelines of the 47th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Sunday, October 26, 2025. File Photo via The White House/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 6 (UPI) — The United States on Thursday lifted a Biden-era arms embargo on Cambodia following several high-profile meetings between officials of both countries.

The notice filed by the State Department with the Federal Register that explains the Trump administration was removing Cambodia from the International Traffic in Arms Regulations list due to Phnom Penh’s “diligent pursuit of peace and security, including through renewed engagement with the United States on defense cooperation and combating transnational crime.”

The embargo was placed on Cambodia in late 2021 by the Biden administration to address human rights abuses, corruption by Cambodian government actors, including in the military, and the growing influence of China in the country.

It was unclear if any of those issues had been addressed.

“The Trump administration has completely upended U.S. policy toward Cambodia with no regard for U.S. national security or our values,” Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., said in a statement criticizing the move to lift the embargo.

“There has been broad bipartisan concern about the Cambodian government’s human rights abuses and its deepening ties to Beijing.”

The embargo was lifted on the heels of Deputy Prime Minister Prak Sokhonn meeting with Michael George DeSombre, U.S. assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, in Cambodia on Tuesday.

On Friday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth met with Tea Seiha, another Cambodian deputy prime minister, in Malaysia, where the two agreed to restart “our premier bilateral military exercise,” the Pentagon chief said in a statement.

President Donald Trump has received much praise from Cambodia for his involvement in securing late July’s cease-fire and then last month’s peace declaration between Thailand and Cambodia, which had been involved in renewed armed conflict in their long-running border dispute.

During Tuesday’s meeting between Prak and DeSombre, the Cambodian official reiterated Phnom Penh’s “deep gratitude” to Trump “for his crucial role in facilitating” the agreements, according to a Cambodian Foreign Ministry statement on the talks.

Meeks framed the lifting of the embargo on Thursday as the Trump administration turning a blind eye to Cambodia’s “rampant corruption and repression … because the Cambodian government placated Trump in his campaign for a Nobel Peace Prize.”

“That’s not how American foreign policy or our arms sales process is meant to work,” Meeks said.

Cambodia in August nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize “in recognition of his historic contributions in advancing world peace,” the letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee stated.

Sept. 29 (UPI) — The Trump administration on Monday rescinded a Biden-era firearms export rule that prohibited the transfer of civilian weaponry to individuals in 36 countries deemed high-risk of falling into the hands of criminals or terrorists.

The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security rescinded the interim final rule, arguing it imposed “onerous” export controls on weapons, throttling U.S. gunmakers from competing in overseas markets at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars a year in exports.

“BIS strongly rejects the Biden administration’s war on the Second Amendment and law-abiding firearms users,” Jeffrey Kessler, under secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security, said in a statement.

“With today’s rule, BIS is restoring common sense to export controls and doing right by America’s proud firearms industry, while also continuing to protect national security.”

The Biden administration released the interim final rule in April 30, 2024, to restrict private transfers of firearms out of the United States.

It aimed to reduce so-called straw purchases where one person legally buys the weapon for someone restricted by the United States from owning it.

It did this by barring the sale of weapons to individuals in 36 countries the Department of State has designated a “substantial risk” that lawful firearms exports to non-governmental entities will be diverted or misused, according to a report to Congress on Biden-era restrictions on firearms sales.

The countries are those blacklisted in the State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and the Presidential Determination on Major Drug Transit or Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries.

Countries on those lists include Afghanistan, Myanmar, China, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Jamaica and others.

The rule also reduced export license limits to one to two years instead of the previous four to five and required potential exporters to include purchase orders and passport identification from the intended recipient to show they are the actual person who is interested in and allowed to receive the firearm.

Civilian weapons and ammunition affected by the rule included most pistols, rifles, and non-long barrel shotguns.

In rescinding the rule, the Bureau of Industry and Security argued the presumption of denial to 36 countries ceded the overseas markets in those nations to foreign firearms manufactures, the export license requirements were a bureaucratic hurdle about optics, not national security.

“The firearm industry is tremendously grateful to the Trump administration and BIS officials for their actions to restore American competitiveness in firearm manufacturing and exports to foreign countries,” Lawrence Keane, NSSF senior vice president and general counsel, said in a statement.

“American firearm manufacturing is the worldwide leader and removing these restrictions will restore access to foreign markets while continuing to maintain adequate export controls to prevent illegal firearm trafficking.”

A report produced in October 2024 by the Government Accountability Office found that 73% of all weapons, mostly handguns, recovered in crimes by law enforcement in Caribbean nations, which account for six of the 10 highest murder rates in the world, had come from the United States, many coming from commercial sales.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, chastised the Trump administration for further weakening oversight of international arms transfers, saying these weapons will now more easily find their ways into “illicit hands.”

“Countries around the world, especially in Latin American and the Caribbean, have called on the U.S. to better control the export of American firearms, which all too often are exploited by gangs and criminal networks to destabilize communities and exacerbate civilian insecurity,” he said in a statement, while pointing to the GAO report.

“The administration’s reduction of oversight checks on such sales does nothing to strengthen national, regional or global security.”

The FBI will reopen cases related to the 2021 pipe bombings in Washington, D.C., the 2023 discovery of cocaine in the White House and the 2022 leak of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to end a woman’s right to choose an abortion. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo

May 26 (UPI) — FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said Monday the bureau will reexamine three high-profile Biden-era cases.

“Shortly after swearing in, (FBI Director Kash Patel) and I evaluated a number of cases of potential public corruption that, understandably, have garnered public interest,” he said in a statement on X.

The government will reopen cases related to the 2021 pipe bombings in Washington, D.C., the 2023 discovery of cocaine in the White House and the 2022 leak of the U.S. Supreme Court‘s ruling to end women’s 50-year-long right to choose an abortion nationwide.

“We made the decision to either re-open, or push additional resources and investigative attention, to these cases,” Bongino, a conservative social media personality nominated in February for the role by President Donald Trump, added Monday.

The suspect behind the planting of two pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic Party national headquarters around Jan 5, 2021, remains a mystery that occurred in the final days of the first Trump administration.

The other FBI case Bongino reopened was the leak of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 draft opinion in the Dobbs ruling, which overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, in what was the first-ever draft opinion leak in the high court.

“This was a singular and egregious breach of trust that is an affront to the court,” Chief Justice John Roberts said at the time.

Finally, Bongino cited the July 2, 2023, discovery of cocaine at the Biden White House in a case closed by the U.S. Secret Service after some 11 days. Investigators narrowed their list down to “several hundred” possible suspects with “insufficient” DNA samples on the bag.

“I receive requested briefings on these cases weekly,” Bongino says, adding that FBI officials are “making progress.”

It was the second time in one day that the FTC pulled out of litigation begun during the Biden administration.

The Republican-controlled Federal Trade Commission is abandoning a Biden-era effort to block Microsoft’s purchase of Call of Duty video game maker Activision Blizzard.

In an order issued Thursday, the FTC said it had determined that “the public interest is best served by dismissing the administrative litigation in this case.”

It was the second time in one day that the FTC pulled out of litigation begun during the administration of former President Joe Biden, a Democrat. Earlier Thursday, the FTC said it was dismissing a lawsuit against PepsiCo that was filed by the Democratic-controlled FTC in January.

Microsoft announced a $69bn acquisition of Activision in January 2022. It was one of the most expensive tech acquisitions in history and was designed to boost sales of Microsoft’s Xbox gaming console, which has lagged in sales behind Sony’s PlayStation and Nintendo.

In December 2022, the FTC – then led by Democratic Chairwoman Lina Khan – sued to temporarily block the acquisition, saying it would let Microsoft suppress competitors who want access to Xbox and its subscription content.

In July 2023, the United States District Court in Northern California denied the FTC’s request to pause the acquisition, but the FTC appealed. Earlier this month, a federal appeals court also denied the FTC’s request.

In the meantime, Microsoft completed its purchase of Activision in October 2023 after it won approval from the United Kingdom’s competition watchdog, which had also considered blocking the merger.

Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chairman and president, said Thursday in a statement on X that the decision is a victory for video game players and for “common sense in Washington DC”.

“We are grateful to the FTC for today’s announcement,” Smith said.

Political actions

Khan stepped down from the FTC when President Donald Trump took office in January, and Trump fired Democratic Commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya in March. Bedoya and Slaughter have sued the Trump administration, saying their removal was illegal.

Right now, the FTC is made up of three Republican commissioners, and it’s unclear when the two Democrats on the commission will be replaced. A message seeking comment was left with the FTC.

In the PepsiCo case, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said the Biden-era FTC rushed to authorise a case just three days before Trump’s inauguration. He said on Thursday that the case, which alleged that PepsiCo was violating the law by giving unfair price advantages to Walmart, was a “dubious political stunt”.

But the FTC hasn’t stood in the way of some Biden-era policies. Earlier this month, a rule the FTC announced in December requiring ticket sellers, hotels, vacation rental platforms and others to disclose their fees upfront went into effect.