US Hoping for More Collaboration, Better Use of Export Controls, NSC Official Says

The U.S. National Security Council is hoping to better harmonize export controls and foreign investment restrictions across the Five Eyes alliance, an effort that will be a key aspect of President Joe Biden’s future talks with European and other allies, a senior NSC official said. The U.S. is also reviewing how government agencies use those tools to better address a rise in export control evasion tactics, the official said.

“Looking forward, I think you can expect technology issues to be high on the agenda for the president's engagement with European leaders and the European Union as well,” Tarun Chhabra, the NSC’s senior director for technology and national security, said during a May 25 event hosted by the Center for a New American Security.

Chhabra said the U.S. is reviewing its use of trade tools to make sure they align with the Biden administration’s policy objectives, which places a heavy emphasis on collaboration with allies. “We are looking across the full spectrum of tools, from export controls to investment screening to research security, to ensure that all of these tools are being brought to bear together in a way that makes sense,” he said. Chhabra also said officials are working to find “gaps” in those controls to correct them. “Increasingly we’re seeing folks looking to circumvent [export controls] in ways that are quite sophisticated,” he said.

He said the U.S. is hoping to increase export control cooperation with allies to expand the “sphere of the free flow of data” and technology “as large as possible for trusted actors” in other countries. “That's obviously a huge focus for us,” Chhabra said. He said the U.S. can achieve this by creating “unified standards” and “common approaches to technology protection.”

While the Trump administration was criticized at times for its lack of cooperation with allies, the Biden administration wants to “minimize that kind of friction,” particularly within the Five Eyes countries of Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the U.S. and New Zealand. “The closer our alliances and ties, hopefully the closer those standards and approaches, so that within that we are able to share as much [technology] as possible” without worrying “about adversaries getting access,” Chhabra said.

Australia also wants to better promote the sharing of critical technologies among Five Eyes countries, said Tobias Feakin, Australia’s ambassador for cyber affairs and critical technology. “We still need to be able to have market access and be able to move goods and services around the world,” Feakin said during the event. “It's in our advantage to work through this quickly and efficiently and creatively to make sure that we are not collectively hamstringing ourselves, whilst not also giving away so much [intellectual property] to would-be adversaries that we disadvantage ourselves.”

But he also said loosening export controls over advanced technologies -- especially dual-use goods -- can be a challenging exercise. “I think it becomes just infinitely more complex when you're dealing with these high-end technologies and defining what's dual-use and what’s not, and what are these things being used for,” Feakin said. “That's something obviously as governments we’re puzzling through.”