USTR and State Officials Praise Progress in USML Revisions at Update Conference, Anticipate More Work Ahead
U.S. Trade Representative Mike Froman and officials from the Departments of State and Defense praised progress in revising U.S. Munitions List (USML) categories but said significantly more needs to be done towards export control reform (ECR), at the 26th annual Update Conference on Export Control. Beth McCormick from the State Department and Tim Hoffman, Deputy Director of the Defense Department, said ECR has seen “phenomenal” interagency collaboration so far, but agreed that much work was needed before moving to a single control list and single agency.
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However, Froman and Hoffman said revision and rewriting of the entire USML is still the administration’s “current focus.” In his remarks, Froman said officials would “need to do the same sort of top-to-bottom scrub of the dual-use items currently on the Commerce Control List.” This process would also involve a full review of Export Administration Regulations, and require at least one multilateral regime to agree to changes before they are implemented in U.S. law, Froman said.
According to Hoffman, the current priority of rewriting regulations has resulted in tensions from weighing varying interests. Hoffman estimated that it would take about three years to accomplish the broader goals outlined for ECR, but had no definitive timeline. He added that ECR will enter the election cycle mid-summer in 2016 and will experience “something of a slowdown or stoppage, whichever way the election may go.” But Hoffman said there was still potential for continued operation under “significant fiscal constraints,” and a meeting would be held this week on how to expedite the entire reform process. “We have a long way to go and it’s not an easy road,” Hoffman said. “But I think we can do it and I think it’s worth doing.”
Matthew Borman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Export Administration, said that initiatives like one from 2008 about intercompany transfers were superseded by the “massive” ECR effort. “They may be issues we’ll come back to at some point,” he said.