Export Controls—International Coordination:Issues for Congress, CRS, Sep. 8, 2023.

Christopher A. Casey
Analyst in International
Trade and Finance

SUMMARY

Export Controls—International Coordination: Issues for Congress

Since the 1940s, the United States has maintained a regime of peacetime controls on exports for national security, foreign policy, and economic purposes. During that time, Congress has increasingly emphasized, through both legislation and oversight, the importance of coordinating export controls with allies and partners. Coordination, Congress asserts, can increase the effectiveness and decrease the costs of controls by ensuring that (1) controlled goods and technologies are not widely available from alternative sources; and (2) U.S. exporters are not disadvantaged vis-à-vis foreign competitors who might be freer to sell their wares.

Since 1949, the United States has coordinated its controls with allies and partners in a variety of fora. During the Cold War, the United States was a part of the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom), an exclusive, informal organization, whose operations were largely hidden from public view, where members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and other aligned states coordinated controls on exports to the Soviet Union and its close allies. Beginning in the 1970s, various governments, including the United States, established other regimes to coordinate export controls on goods and technologies related to the development of weapons of mass destruction. In contrast to CoCom, the
operations of these regimes were not hidden from public view, they were open to a wider group of states, and did not target specific countries.

With the end of the Cold War, the United States and its NATO allies dissolved CoCom in 1994. In its place, dozens of countries came together and established the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies. The Wassenaar Arrangement, like the nonproliferation regimes, is open to virtually any state and its operations are not hidden from public view. As a result, the Wassenaar Arrangement includes many former members of the Soviet Union, including Russia. Following the Wassenaar Arrangement’s establishment, some Members of Congress expressed dissatisfaction and concern with many of the Arrangement’s provisions and its capacity to coordinate controls that
target other countries effectively.

Since the 2010s, some U.S. policymakers have adopted a more expansive view of national security that integrates economic concerns to a greater degree than at any point since the end of the Cold War. Since the middle of the last decade, multiple administrations have used a variety of tools to restrict trade for national security purposes. Export controls have arguably
been the most frequently used tool in that effort.

Because of difficulties in reaching consensus among participants in existing export control arrangements, some policymakers and experts have advocated that the United States coordinate export control policy with smaller groups of likeminded states to achieve specific national security, foreign policy, and economic goals. The United States has recently adopted export controls as part of its response to: the Russian Federation’s (Russia) further invasion of Ukraine; the People’s Republic of China’s (China) efforts to develop advanced semiconductor manufacturing capabilities; and human rights concerns.

This report considers issues related to coordinating export controls internationally. It begins by discussing why governments control exports, the reasons for coordinating controls, and the different styles of regimes for coordinating controls. It then discusses the longstanding interest of Congress in coordinating controls and the history of U.S. involvement in post-World
War II export control regimes and recent attempts to coordinate controls with small groups of like-minded states. The report concludes by identifying potential areas of congressional interest and engagement.

Contents

Introduction ................................................ 1
A Note on the terms “Multilateral” and “Plurilateral” .................. 3
Why Control Exports? ............................................................ 4
Why Coordinate Controls? .................................................. 6
Increase Effectiveness ........................................................ 6
Decrease Cost ............................................................................... 6
Types of International Export Control Coordination ................ 8
Conditionally Open Institutional Coordination / Multilateral Coordination ..... 9
Restricted Institutional Coordination / Institutional Plurilateral Coordination 11
Ad Hoc Coordination / Ad Hoc Plurilateral Coordination ....................... 11
Congress and International Coordination of Export Controls .................... 12
Historical Coordination of Export Controls ........................... 14
CoCom and the Cold War .................................................... 14
CoCom’s Functioning ................................................................ 17
CoCom Challenges...................................................................... 18
The Gradual Shift to Open Institutional Coordination / Multilateral Coordination ................ 18
Warming Relations and Nonproliferation ............................. 18
The End of the Cold War and the Creation of the Wassenaar Arrangement ..................... 19
Criticism of Wassenaar ............................................................ 20
Recent Plurilateral and Bilateral Coordination.......................... 21
Export Control Coordination on Russia and Belarus .............. 23
Export Control Coordination on China ........................................ 24
Export Control Coordination on Human Rights ........................ 26
Issues for Congress ........................................................................ 28
The Pace of Technological Development and U.S. Export Control Strategy........... 29
A Fifth Export Control Regime ........................................................ 31
Legitimacy, Coordination, and Effectiveness............................... 32
Ethical Trade and Export Control Coordination ....................... 33
Partner Legal and Administrative Capacity .......................... 34
Trade Agreements, Trade Promotion Authority, and Export Controls ...... 36

https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/R47684.pdf