U.S. Military Exports Top Record $50 Billion; Work on Restrictions Still Said Needed
The U.S. has already set a record for exports of military goods this year, said Andrew Shapiro Assistant Secretary of State-Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, in a teleconference with reporters June 14. He said foreign military sales has already topped $50 billion, exceeding the previous record of $30 billion in 2011, "and we still have more than a quarter of the fiscal year left."
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Shapiro said "it's too early to predict what FY13 will look like" in terms of military exports.
This year's sales success came despite tough restrictions on sales that the State Department is working to change, Shapiro said. "To be quite frank, the arms transfer process sometimes causes consternation among our international partners who will gripe about onerous rules and procedures," he said. "And at times it makes countries, to be honest, reluctant to partner with the United States. But these safeguards are critical to our foreign policy, and I can assure you that they are aggressively enforced."
However, Shapiro said, "the current system operates under laws written in the 1970s and was designed to address the challenges of the Cold War. It''s bad for U.S. business, it's bad for enforcing our export control requirements, and it hurts our ability to prosecute those who violate U.S. export control laws."
Focusing on limiting exports only of "the things it needs to protect ... will allow the U.S. government to focus its limited resources on safeguarding and monitoring the most sensitive items," Shapiro said. He said the government has "almost finished our interagency work on all the list categories, and we're working to have this process completed by the end of the year.
In response to a question about whether it would be possible to publish all the proposed rules this year, and the final rules on a rolling basis, Shapiro said: "I'm not going to give you a precise estimate of how many will be published, because we do want to consult with Congress. And this will be a dialogue with Congress, and we want to make sure we take their concerns. ... In terms of the timing, my view is by January of next year we'll either be done or we'll be so close to the goal line that it'll just be up to the next administration to dive over the goal line and do a touchdown dance."