Kevin Wolf Quoted in Export Compliance Daily on US Export Controls Strategies

Export Compliance Daily has published the article “Former BIS Official Wolf Outlines Preferred Strategy for US Export Controls.” The article reports on a recent Akin Gump webinar at which international trade partner Kevin Wolf discussed how U.S. export controls can best address emerging security challenges.

Wolf, who served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration in the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) during the Obama administration, suggested that the United States first identify new security concerns about American exports such as civil-military fusion, strategic competition and human rights violations. He said Washington should then “find the main producer nations of the key goods in those sectors, convince them of the security threat, get them to change their laws on end-use controls then proceed to set a series of unilateral controls.”

The article notes that Wolf also spoke of how he thinks BIS changed over the past four years under the Trump administration and how he thinks it may operate under the Biden-Harris administration. One key difference, he said, is that BIS will likely be a small part of a detailed strategy on combatting China.