Obama to unveil measures to reform export control system

U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a statement in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington D.C., capital of the United States, Aug. 30, 2010. Obama said on Monday that his economic team had discussed additional steps to move the economy forward, and he again urged the Congress to pass a bill that would "cut more taxes and make available more loans" to small businesses. (Xinhua/Zhang Jun)
U.S. President Barack Obama will announce new measures on Tuesday to reform the country's export control system, with the goal of "strengthening national security and the competitiveness of key U.S. manufacturing and technology sectors," the White House said on Monday.

"The current export control system is overly complicated, contains too many redundancies, and, in trying to protect too much, diminishes our ability to focus our efforts on the most critical national security priorities," the White House said in a press release.

U.S. National Security Advisor James Jones said in an opinion piece on Monday's Wall Street Journal that the ultimate goal of the reform includes four aspects: a single control list that distinguishes in tiers between the most sensitive items and technologies and everything else; a single licensing policy to be applied across all agencies; a center to better coordinate the many agencies involved in export control enforcement; and a single IT system to make sure decisions are fully informed.

The current system operates under two different control lists with fundamentally different approaches to defining controlled products, administered by two different departments, according to the White House.

"This has caused significant ambiguity, confusion and jurisdictional disputes, delaying clear license determinations for months and, in some cases, years," it said.

Meanwhile, there are three different primary licensing agencies, each applying their own policies; a multitude of agencies with overlapping and duplicative authorities currently enforce export controls, creating redundancies and jeopardizing each other's cases; all these agencies operate on a number of separate IT systems, none of which is accessible to other licensing or enforcement agencies or easily compatible with the other systems, according to the White House.

"These changes ... will create an export control system that is more effective, transparent and predictable -- one that enhances U. S. national security, improves the functioning of the government, and maintains the competitiveness of critical manufacturing and technology sectors," said the release about the reform.

Source: Xinhua