US 'Very Confident' AUKUS Nations Will Align Export Controls, State Dept. Official Says

The State Department believes Australia and the U.K. will soon update their export control regimes so both can benefit from pending U.S. legislation that could expedite defense exports to those countries, said Jessica Lewis, who leads the agency’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. But at least one lawmaker said the U.S. should not be requiring the U.K. and Australia to revise their export control laws, adding that the request risks impeding the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) agreement.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this year advanced legislation that would create a new defense export license exemption for Australia and the U.K. as long as the State Department certifies both countries have export control regimes “comparable” to that of the U.S. (see 2307140019). Lewis, speaking during a Sept. 6 committee hearing, said she is “very confident” the U.S. and the two countries will “end up with comparable standards.”

“My understanding is each country is looking at changes they may decide to make,” she said. “I don't want to speak for them, but again, I'm confident that they will be able to do so.”

But Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said the request is unnecessary, adding that Australia and the U.K. are both “groaning” at having to bolster their trade controls. “Our export control system remains overly cumbersome and treats our closest allies with proven track records of technology protection as if they were our new or emerging partners,” Risch said during the hearing.

He said both countries already have “legal regulatory and technology control regimes that are comparable” to those of the U.S. “Demands from the administration that Australia and the U.K. take extensive reform of their domestic political regulatory system are frankly condescending,” Risch said, “and it highlights the need for a clear shift in the [State Department’s] attitude toward defense cooperation with allies.”

Risch said he’s concerned the request could jeopardize or delay the AUKUS agreement, which commits all three countries to sharing sensitive nuclear submarine technology and other emerging defense technologies. The U.S. intelligence community already shares “incredibly, incredibly sensitive and important material” with both nations, he added, and that should extend to how both are treated under U.S. trade policies.

“There may be an overreach there,” Risch said. “We really ought to take a deep breath and sit down and review how we can reconcile how we treat our allies in the intelligence field and make it more compatible with how we treat them in trade and industrial matters.”

Lewis disagreed with Risch that Australia and the U.K. have objected to U.S. requests to update their export control regimes. She said she recently met with Australian officials to discuss AUKUS, and it “was possibly one of the most positive meetings I've ever participated in.”

She also said the U.S. wants Australia and the U.K. to be able to better prosecute cases of export control violations, including against the Chinese, pointing to a U.S. enforcement action earlier this year against flight training academies for providing training to Chinese military pilots using American and other Western sources, which violated export control laws (see 2306120030). One of the pilots training the Chinese pilots was Australian, Lewis said, and the U.S. is trying to extradite that person “here under our laws to deal with that issue.”

“We want to make sure that if a country is trying to acquire a particular technology, it can't get around the system by going into a [country] where there's more room in their export controls,” Lewis said. “And I think that, to me, it's common sense to work together to bring all of us to similar standards.”

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., agreed, saying the U.S. shouldn’t allow other countries to use AUKUS as a “Trojan horse to undermine U.S. export controls for the sake of commercial industrial interests that are unrelated to the partnership.” Menendez, chair of the committee, also suggested that if the U.S. doesn’t require Australia and the U.K. to update their export control regulations, other countries may also request similar treatment.

“What do we do when other partners tell us that they inevitably will want the same lower standards?” Menendez said. “Shouldn't we use this opportunity to leverage and enhance allied export controls so that we are protecting our own vital taxpayer-funded military technology?”

Lewis said Menendez was “absolutely right.” The State Department is working “very hard” to “make the system work so that we can create these kinds of alliances and partnerships where we're providing our most sensitive, highly lethal defense articles to other countries. We want everybody to have the best possible standards.” The agency recently created a temporary defense trade authorization mechanism that it will use to expedite technology transfers under AUKUS while both countries work to update their export controls (see 2307100062).

The State Department, however, hasn’t yet discussed reducing defense sharing restrictions against other nations, Lewis said. “We're really focused on getting Australia and the U.K. over the line, and you can see the significant amount of work that's taking,” she said. “So we haven't made plans at this point to bring others in.”