After many months of official silence on the matter, the United States has finally revealed some of its plans for overhauling its export control regime, which Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao described earlier this year as “anachronistic.”
In remarks made via videoconference to the U.S. Department of Commerce Annual Export Controls Update Conference, President Barack Obama said, “For too long, we have had two very different control lists, with agencies fighting over who has jurisdiction. Decisions were delayed, sometimes for years, and industries lost their edge or moved abroad.”
To rectify these problems Mr. Obama said that going forward there would be a single, tiered, positive list – “one that would permit allow us to build higher walls around the export of our most sensitive items while allowing the export of less critical ones under less restrictive conditions.”
It was unclear whether the Indian government would view the changes made as resolving the major anomalies within the export control regime given the mention of “higher walls.” Key among the list of objections that Indian officials such as Ms. Rao have brought to the attention of the Department of Commerce has been the fact that U.S. entities have been banned from trading sensitive, dual-use high-tech items with India.
Further it was also not clear whether government-run institutions such as the Indian Space Research Organisation would be removed from the Entities List of the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security.
Referring in particular to the troubles faced by “allies” as a result of inconsistent or outdated rules, the White House said in a statement, “The control list criteria are based on transparent rules, which will reduce the uncertainty faced by our Allies, U.S. industry and its foreign partners, and will allow the government to erect higher walls around the most sensitive items in order to enhance national security.”
The White House further clarified that U.S. agencies would apply the criteria and revise the lists of munitions and dual use items that are controlled for export so that they are “tiered” to distinguish the types of items that should be subject to stricter or more permissive levels of control for different destinations, end-uses, and end-users.
Further, U.S. agencies would seek to create a “bright line” between the two current control lists to “clarify jurisdictional determinations and reduce government and industry uncertainty about whether particular items are subject to the control of the State Department or the Commerce Department”.
Finally the application of criteria would be structurally aligned so that they potentially could be combined into a single list of controlled items, the White House noted.
