restricts

June 22 (UPI) — China announced Monday that it is adding 10 U.S. defense companies to its export control list, restricting business with those firms.

The move prohibits Chinese companies from exporting certain items to those companies, including drones, robotic hardware and software that is used for defense and national security capabilities. There are also items for nonmilitary uses that are restricted.

The companies added to the export control list are: AVEOX, Red Cat Holdings, Teal Drones, IMSAR, Jaia Robotics, Ball Aerospace and Technologies, Oshkosh Defense, L3Harris Maritime Services, MP Materials and USA Rare Earth.

“Exporters are prohibited from exporting dual-use items to the aforementioned 10 entities, and any organization or individual from any country or region is prohibited from transferring or providing dual-use items originating in China to the aforementioned entities; any ongoing related export activities must be immediately ceased,” the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced.

The Chinese Finance Ministry also announced that 46 U.S. companies are banned from participating in government procurement projects. Many of those companies are also defense contractors.

Companies that are banned from participating in government procurement projects include Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and General Atomics.

Both bans take effect immediately, however China has included some flexibility in situations where exporting is “truly necessary.”

China’s new trade restrictions are in response to the Pentagon accusing a number of Chinese companies of aiding its military. The Pentagon updated its list of companies believed to be aiding the Chinese military earlier this month, blocking the Department of Defense from awarding direct contracts to those companies.

The update included the additions of Alibaba Group, Baidu and BYD, a Chinese automaker.

May 18 (UPI) — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday restricted non-U.S. passport holders from entering the United States if they have been in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo or South Sudan in the past 21 days.

The agency made the announcement as there have at least 346 cases and 88 deaths in the DRC, on top of several cases that have been confirmed in nearby nations in people who been there, the CDC said over the weekend.

The CDC said that is coordinating with various agencies and companies to manage travelers who have been exposed to Ebola as it also deploys employees to support containment of the outbreak in the three nations.

“CDC assess the immediate risk to the general U.S. public as low, but we will continue to evaluate the evolving situation and may adjust public health measures as additional information becomes available,” the agency said in a situation summary.

In the last five days, the World Health Organization confirmed that the Ebola virus circulating in the three countries right now is the Bundibuyo virus, one of four known strains that have affected humans since Ebola was discovered in mid-1970s.

Although there is an approved, licensed vaccine against Ebola which has successfully been used to quell outbreaks, the vaccine — called Ervebo — only protects against acquisition of the Zaire species of Ebola virus, making it useless in the current outbreak, according to the CDC.

WHO on Saturday declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.

In its update, WHO said that there are “significant uncertainties to the true number of infected persons and geographic spread associated with this event at the present time. In addition, there is limited understanding of the epidemiologic links with known or suspected cases.”

Ebola spreads from wild animals to humans and from human to human through direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids from infected individuals, and carries a case fatality rate of roughly 50%.

A number of affected Americans have reportedly been exposed to the virus during the outbreak.

The CDC has recommended that people who have traveled through the two countries in the last 21 days should immediately seek medical attention if they develop Ebola symptoms, which can include fever, weakness, vomiting, diarrhea or unexplained bleeding.

In addition to roughly 30 CDC employees dispatched to the region, and will join officials from several other global and regional health agencies, the WHO is expected to convene an emergency committee to advise the agency’s director-general on its response the outbreak.

May 13 (UPI) — The United States announced visa restrictions on 13 people linked to a U.S.-sanctioned, India-based online pharmacy that the Trump administration accuses of selling Americans hundreds of thousands of counterfeit prescription pills laced with fentanyl.

The people targeted by the State Department on Tuesday were identified as being “close business associates of KS International Traders and its owner.”

The U.S. Treasury sanctioned KS International and Mohammad Iqbal Shaikh, 34, in September. Shaikh was also among 19 people indicted in New York in the fall of 2024 on charges of selling counterfeit, fentanyl-laced pills to Americans over the Internet and via encrypted messaging platforms.

The targeting of KS International comes amid the Trump administration’s broader crackdown on drug smuggling. Among tactics employed was President Donald Trump‘s December 2025designation of illicit fentanyl and its core precursor chemicals as weapons of mass destruction.

In June, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a new policy to impose visa restrictions on drug traffickers, their family members and close personal and business associates.

State Department spokesperson Thomas Pigott said Tuesday that the barring of entry to the 13 individuals “underscores the United States’ and India’s enduring and shared commitment to dismantling illicit drug entities and disrupting trafficking networks that harm Americans.”

“Those complicit in poisoning Americans will be denied entry to the United States,” he said in a statement.

The Trump administration has increasingly used visa restrictions across several policy areas, from punishing Haitian government officials and members of criminal organizations accused of obstructing the nation’s fight against terrorist gangs to Nicaraguan citizens believed to be facilitating irregular immigration into the United States.