Export Controls

Commerce Department Has Improved Its Foreign Policy Reports to Congress Gao ID: NSIAD-90-169 June 12, 1990

Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed three of the Secretary of Commerce's reports concerning imposing, expanding, or extending foreign policy export controls.

GAO found that: (1) the reports generally complied with improved reporting requirements on foreign availability of controlled missile-related items; (2) the Department of Commerce consulted with industry concerning biological organism controls; (3) security-related foreign-policy-based controls have blurred the distinction between foreign-policy-based controls and national-security-based controls; and (4) increased reliance on foreign-policy-based controls may harm the competitiveness of U.S. industry because the Export Administration Act of 1979 makes foreign-policy-based controls easier to impose and more difficult to remove than national-security-based controls.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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