Transatlantic supporters of export control reforms are planning to regroup after the US election in November, seeking to overcome four years of disappointing results with a revamped strategy.
"We're in a pause. Everybody's tired. We haven't really achieved a whole lot," says Robert Bauerlein, Boeing's vice-president of international operations, addressing ComDef 2004. "We need to have a point of pause and come back and address this in a different way."
In 2001, most of the defence industry greeted the Bush Administration's rise to power with high hopes of new progress on relaxing US arms export restrictions. High on the administration's agenda was streamlining the licensing control process and providing the UK and Australia with exemptions from the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).
But a heightened security climate and concerns about defence industry job losses to overseas firms combined to trigger a backlash in Congress. Since spring 2003, industry leaders have been fighting a rearguard campaign, seeking to preserve status quo powers to co-operate with international partners against a legislative onslaught.
"We've got to come back with a clean slate and look at next year," said US Congressman Curt Weldon, at the conference on international defence co-operation. "And we had better find a way to make this work because [the US industry] just can't shoulder the load alone."
Last autumn, Weldon helped secure a last-minute defeat of the "buy American" amendment proposed by Congressman Duncan Hunter, who chairs the armed services committee in the House of Representatives. This year, Hunter has shifted his focus to eliminating offset agreements in foreign military sales - a measure that Weldon opposes as impractical.
"After November, Congress needs to sit down and say what are we really worried about today," John Douglass, president and chief executive of the US Aerospace Industries Association, told the conference. "If it's jobs, then we need laws to take care of that."
Export control supporters say US lawmakers must understand that globalisation of the defence trade does not mean losing jobs at home, and European firms seeking to penetrate the US market must concentrate on bringing jobs into the USA.
STEPHEN TRIMBLE / WASHINGTON DC
Source: Flight International
