US Should ‘More Quickly’ Build New Multilateral Export Control Structure, Former Official Says
The U.S. “should move more quickly” to establish a new multilateral export control forum to restrict high tech exports to China now that the Wassenaar Arrangement has become less effective, said William Reinsch, a former Commerce Department official and current Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Reinsch said “multilateralism is the only viable approach to high-tech export controls,” adding that “existing structures are not adequate to the task” and must be replaced by other means for the U.S. and its trading partners to coordinate.
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Reinsch, in a July 24 commentary for CSIS, said that can be achieved by fixing Wassenaar -- most likely by expelling Russia, which can block the multilateral body from enacted export control decisions (see 2302080034, 2211210005 and 2205240039) -- or by establishing an entirely “new architecture” or a set of “mini-regimes.” Although he said there are “advantages of a reinvented Wassenaar,” Reinsch said he favors the mini-regime approach, which could create separate export control forums for specific technology sectors and would include “only the small number of countries that actually produce the controlled items.” He said this process “would be easier to create and easier to operate successfully.”
“The United States had great success in building a coalition that imposed sanctions and controls on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine,” Reinsch said. “It should move more quickly to reconcile internal differences over how to build a multilateral structure that can best control high-tech exports to China so it can repeat its 2022 success.”