Existing Export Control Regimes Falling Short, Senior Commerce Official Says
The U.S. needs to build a new multilateral export control forum to “institutionalize” the licensing and enforcement coordination of the last several months, said Don Graves, the Commerce Department’s deputy secretary. Although Bureau of Industry and Security officials said they are unsure whether the cooperation will lead to a new, formal export control regime (see 2206290032), Graves was critical of the existing ones, saying the U.S. needs a more modern approach to respond to Russia and other global crises in the future.
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“Our existing multilateral export control regimes weren't designed to make quick, consensus-driven decisions to address a crisis like Russia's invasion of Ukraine,” Graves said last week during the BIS annual update conference. “And that's especially true for the many regimes, unfortunately, in which Russia is a member.”
He said the U.S. needs to “develop new tools and evolve our existing structures,” adding that the Russia-Ukraine war has “exposed the limitations of the current international export control system.” There is “no mechanism to coordinate prompt global policy against state and no-state actors who threaten” global security, Graves said, while also keeping “pace with the rapid technological advancement that we're witnessing today.”
Export control experts have urged the U.S. to create a new, modern export control regime to better address control issues surrounding emerging technologies (see 2205240039 and 2206100021). A new export control forum should respond “rapidly to present-day threats,” Graves said, “and allow us to share information, develop tailored coordinated controls and licensing policies, and to collaborate on enforcement."
He named several specific technologies that need to be better controlled, including cyber surveillance technologies, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and quantum computing. But he stressed multilateral controls are the best way to protect them. Graves said, “We need to work to build a more flexible forum to coordinate the application and enforcement of multilateral controls, because as we've seen with Russia, export controls are most effective when we are aligned with our allies and our partners.”