US announces export controls reform

US President Barack Obama has unveiled his administration's plan to overhaul the country's Cold War-era system for controlling technology exports with more centralised and streamlined processes.

"For too long, we have had two very different control lists, with agencies fighting over who has jurisdiction. Decisions were delayed - sometimes for years - and industries lost their edge or moved abroad," Obama said in a 31 August speech to an annual Department of Commerce export controls conference.

"Going forward, we will have a single, tiered, positive list - one which will allow us to build higher walls around the export of our most sensitive items while allowing the export of less critical ones under less restrictive conditions," he said.

This plan is largely in line with a proposal announced in April by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who has said the legacy system is detrimental to national security.

Obama said he plans to sign an executive order that creates an "Export Enforcement Coordination Center to co-ordinate and strengthen our enforcement efforts" by eliminating gaps and duplication of efforts across multiple departments and agencies.

Under the existing US export control regime, exporting military equipment requires oversight from the Department of State, which consults with the Department of Defense. Exporting technology that had military and commercial applications requires oversight from the Department of Commerce, which also consults with the departments of state and defence.

Senior Pentagon officials have voiced concern that this system is dangerous in that it places walls around too many technologies, with some walls not high enough and others hindering exports to partner nations.

With the Obama administration's new plan, agencies will create export control lists of munitions and dual-use items that are tiered to "distinguish the types of items that should be subject to stricter or more permissive levels of control for different destinations, end uses and end users", the White House said in a statement.