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Volume 16, Issue 204
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Tuesday, October 13, 2009
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Business Group Calls for Caution in Reforming Export Control System
The U.S. Business and Industry Council issued Oct. 8 a document outlining the issues it wants addressed as part of the Obama administration’s ongoing review of the U.S. export control system. The document counters many of the recommendations recently advanced by the Coalition for Security and Competitiveness, which the USBIC suggests are not based on accurate premises and do not “realistically address genuine security as well as economic realities.” The USBIC’s arguments include the following.
• Claims that the current export control system is exacting major economic costs “are based on hearsay and anecdotes” and the only available data strongly indicates that the economic impact is in fact minimal.
• Given the thousands of foreign barriers erected against U.S. exports, including predatory practices such as currency manipulation, discriminatory value-added tax systems and illegal subsidies, the administration should focus its export enhancement efforts on eliminating these practices instead of loosening export controls.
• Eliminating dual-use export license requirements for allies and partner nations should be made subject to the approval of not only the federal agencies with statutory export control responsibilities but the intelligence community as well.
• A fast-track process for the review of dual-use export licenses for other key countries that do not pose a significant threat and have a strong history of export control compliance should not be implemented unless the process takes fully into account the possibility of political changes within these countries that could affect their geopolitical orientation and security relations with the U.S., along with their approach to compliance.
• New licensing protocols to facilitate the transfer of controlled technologies and items within companies and their foreign subsidiaries and offices, so long as the companies maintain appropriate standards of internal control and compliance, should be opposed unless the standards of compliance are drawn up and approved by the full range of U.S. national security agencies, including intelligence agencies.
• Reorienting U.S. export control efforts away from a focus on country-wide controls and toward an emphasis on specific end-users within countries is “completely unrealistic for countries like China, where the government tightly subsidizes, oversees, controls and often owns defense-related industries,” and is also “problematic for many other U.S. trade partners, where government involvement in industry and technology development is much more pervasive than in the United States.”
• A “sunset”-type approach to controlling dual-use items – requiring their automatic de-listing after their product cycles have allegedly ended or after a specified number of years has passed, unless specific objections are raised – should be opposed unless the process includes participation from all U.S. government national security agencies, including intelligence agencies, as well as a representative sample of U.S. businesses and private sector specialists.
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