Commerce ‘inept’ at reconciling security and trade needs, says export control bill sponsor
A US Republican Congressman, Jim Banks, has introduced to the House of Representatives a bill which would, inter alia, provide for the transfer of export control authorities from the Department of Commerce to the Department of Defense.
The bill argues:
‘(1) In 2018 Congress on an overwhelming bipartisan basis passed the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 requiring the Department of Commerce to tighten restrictions on transfers of emerging and foundational technologies to high risk countries, especially China, but there has been little progress ever since.
(2) The Department of Commerce has shown itself inept to reconcile its mission to protect United States national security with its objective of promoting United States exports to high-risk countries, especially China.
(3) By August 2022, a Department of Commerce-led process that reviews United States technology exports to China has approved almost all requests and has overseen an increase in sales of some particularly important technologies.
(4) There are only 70 Chinese entities on the Department of Commerce’s current entity list, despite that tens of thousands of Chinese entities may meet the United States criteria for military end-user export restrictions.
(5) The Bureau of Industry and Security, responsible for enforcing export control under the Department of Commerce, has not taken a single action since the passing of the Export Control Reform 2 Act of 2018 to restrict foundational technology from being transferred to China.
(6) In May 2022, the Bureau of Industry and Security dropped foundational technology as a criterion, culminating its defiance of Congress.’
Accordingly, it says, ‘[E]xport control authority should be taken away from the Bureau of Industry and Security of the Department of Commerce since the Bureau has manifestly been unable to resolve the conflict of interest between promoting trade and protecting United States national security through enforcing restrictions on technology transfer to high-risk countries, especially China.’
