Trump Urged to Implement, Build on Biden Guidance for Missile Tech Transfer Policy
The Trump administration should build on a January move by President Joe Biden that was designed to ease how the government authorizes transfers of missile technology-related exports to close allies, said Sean Wilson, a non-resident aerospace policy researcher with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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The Biden administration in January updated its guidance for missile technology exports in part to relax certain licensing review policies for Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) Category I military missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and space launch vehicles (see 2501080039). Wilson said the change was “long-overdue” and could help “streamline defense trade,” although its implementation will depend on the Trump administration.
It’s unclear whether Trump will follow through with the changes. The document announcing the revision has been deleted from the White House website.
Wilson said Trump should order the State and Commerce departments to “immediately ease key regulations to align them” with the policy shift, which would help give “certainty” to U.S. companies as well as trading partners about what kinds of exports will be allowed. Trump can do this by removing “various technologies” from the State Department’s Excluded Technology List -- which outlines defense articles and services that are excluded from a recently implemented trade exemption for Australia and the U.K. under the AUKUS effort (see 2410010030) -- and update a recently issued rule on space export controls by removing certain export restrictions on spacecraft and updating the rule’s definitions for defense services (see 2412300013).
The U.S. should solicit public comments on changes to both the AUKUS and space rules, and they should be “finalized and published as soon as possible (ideally within the first 100 days of the administration),” Wilson said. The State Department also should “ensure that export regulations pertinent to fast-moving technology areas are reviewed regularly, and that evaluation of foreign commercial availability of such capabilities is an explicit part of the evaluation process on the front end, not something that must be fixed on the back end through industry comments.”
The administration also should clarify which nations will be eligible for “more favorable treatment” under the new MTCR policy, Wilson said, saying there is “broad public uncertainty” about who could be included. Along with Australia, India and the U.K., Wilson said, the U.S. also should include NATO and other U.S. treaty allies, such as Japan and South Korea; major non-NATO allies, like Israel, New Zealand and Taiwan; and any other close allies on the “frontlines of geopolitical competition,” such as Ukraine.
He added that Trump also should consider “further foundational reform of the MTCR,” which is in “desperate need of an overhaul.” Wilson said the regime treats items such as space launch vehicles as “virtually identical to” ballistic missiles, and it lumps a range of drones in with cruise missiles.
A U.S. review should analyze whether new methods are needed to differentiate ballistic missiles from commercial space launch vehicles intended for allies that lack weapons of mass destruction programs, Wilson said, “as well as to differentiate between liquid-fueled and solid-fueled” space-launch vehicles. Drones should be “perhaps excluded from the scope of the MTCR entirely,” he said.