US Assistant Secretary for Export Administration pushes for plurilateralism
In a speech which sets out a vision for the United States’ and international export control priorities, Thea Kendler, who in December 2021 took up the role of Assistant Secretary for Export Administration at the Bureau of Industry and Security (‘BIS’), highlighted three ‘priority areas’ which, she said, she looked forward to working with exporters to advance:
‘First, we must use our export controls to ensure that your technological innovation is not diverted to destructive ends that hurt our national security.’
This, she said, means ‘using export controls effectively to confront and combat China’s military-civilian fusion program. Deterring Russia from taking aggressive and dangerous actions. [And] continuing to work with our multi-lateral partners to restrict nuclear, chemical, and biological technologies to prevent them from being diverted to weapons of mass destruction and terrorism.’
Second, she said, ‘We must tailor export controls to ensure that we don’t disincentivize your technological leadership and that we return resources to the United States for further innovation and research.’
Finally, she added, ‘We must make our export controls a multilateral – or plurilateral or bilateral – system as much as possible. Unilateral controls have a place in our system, but we know that they affect you and not your foreign competitors. We must use them judiciously. I will use my platform to continue pushing for partner countries to recognize our national security concerns and join us in similarly applying controls.’
In her speech (to the Massachusetts Export Expo, on 28 January) she said that ‘authoritarian regimes and non-state bad actors are seeking to turn commerce into chaos. It’s a playbook that I saw clearly as a prosecutor, and it’s the threat environment for BIS and our intra and inter-government partners.’
Meanwhile, she said, ‘US non-proliferation concerns have not changed: missiles, chemical and biological weapons, nuclear capabilities.’ But, she said, ‘We live in a changing world, and our traditional, regime-based, approach cannot help us adjust to every scenario. We are increasingly using the Entity List to identify entities of concern for you – so that you know which specific transactions need extra scrutiny. We’re similarly identifying Military End Users in certain countries for which additional license requirements apply for certain items.’
As an example of such responsiveness, Kendler pointed to the example of BIS issuing, in 2020, ‘a unilateral control for certain software specifically designed to automate the analysis of geospatial imagery under our 0Y521 ECCNs.’
She said, ‘While artificial intelligence (AI) is an important technology that is frequently being used in more commercial products and services, this specific application of AI with geospatial imagery presented national security concerns. We found that the U.S. was the sole developer of this type of software. As a result, we proceeded with the 0Y521 control. We are pursuing a multilateral approach to controlling this technology through Wassenaar, but it is an example where we needed to lead and act quickly to address national security and foreign policy concerns.’
See the speech in full at:
