ITAR Difficulties 'Will Be' Addressed, Former Navy Secretary Says

U.S. defense export regulations are the “biggest speed bump” and need to be addressed to foster closer technology collaboration between the U.S. and allies, former Navy Secretary Richard Spencer said this week. Spencer, speaking at the National Press Club of Australia, said the International Traffic in Arms Regulations “has to be addressed; it will be addressed,” according to a March 20 report from InnovationAus.

Spencer, now managing director of Pallas Ventures, said companies regularly reference the ITAR as why they don’t want to bring technology to the U.S. “Being in the venture business, continually on a global basis I’m hearing … ‘we’ve got a great technology’ and the next statement might be ‘I can’t bring it into the U.S. because I can’t get it out,’ or ‘I don’t even want to address it with the U.S. because ITAR is going to trip me up,’” Spencer said, according to the report. He added: “There’s many people in the U.S. that want to see the ITAR regulations either eradicated or relaxed when it comes to working with our allies.”

Spencer’s comments came days after a former Defense Department official and others said the U.S. needs to revise the ITAR to allow it to more easily share controlled technologies under the Australia-U.K.-U.S. partnership (see 2302170022). Several lawmakers have said they would support legislation to reform U.S. export controls to allow more efficient technology sharing within the group (see 2303140018 and 2301270005).