On December 16, 2022, the US Department of State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (“DDTC”) issued a proposed rule that would treat two additional types of transactions as activities that are not exports, reexports, retransfers, or temporary imports (“controlled events”) (and, thus, not require authorization) under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (“ITAR”). The two additional activities that would not constitute controlled events are:
- Taking defense articles outside a previously approved country by the armed forces of a foreign government or United Nations personnel on a deployment or training exercise, provided (i) the defense article is transported by and remains in the possession of the armed forces of a foreign government or United Nations personnel, and (ii) there is no change in end-use or end-user with respect to the subject defense article; and
- Further reexports or retransfers of foreign defense articles that were previously imported into the United States and then subsequently exported from the United States pursuant to an ITAR license or other approval, provided (i) the foreign defense article was not modified, enhanced, upgraded, or otherwise altered or improved in a manner that changed the basic performance of the article prior to its return to the country from which it was imported or a third country, and (ii) a US-origin defense article was not incorporated into the foreign defense article.
DDTC stated in the proposed rule that while not previously specified in the ITAR, its long-standing policy is that these two activities are not controlled events. DDTC is accepting comments on the proposed rule until February 14, 2023 here.
