27 Nov 14. DDTC Waives Certain U.S. Customs Decrement Requirements for DSP-73’s Covering GFE. Pursuant to §126.3 of the ITAR and only for the export of Government Furnished Equipment hand carried out of the United States for use in service of a U.S. government contract, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Defense Trade Controls has waived the provision in §123.22(a)(2) which requires Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to decrement DSP-73 temporary export licenses under certain circumstances. This will serve as a temporary solution addressing the need for U.S. companies to equip personnel with certain defense articles when deploying overseas in support of U.S. government missions. Under this new policy, companies will be required to obtain a DSP-73 for all of the defense articles to be carried abroad by their personnel. CBP may review the documents as they see fit, but for DSP-73s issued under this policy CBP will not be required to decrement the license at the time of export or import. The license holder will need to account for exported equipment with regular updates to the license case in D-Trade. This policy will cover any defense articles approved under the DSP-73 and carried by the company personnel into or out of any U.S. Port of Entry. In reviewing the scenarios for this policy, the §123.17(f) exemption did not allow for all of the equipment that was needed, and the §126.4 exemptions were not applicable to the majority of the transactions taking place. (Source: glstrade.com)
27 Nov 14. U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Releases 2014 Report to Congress. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has released its 2014 report to Congress. This year’s report covers the key U.S.-China economic and trade issues, security developments in the U.S.-China relationship, and China’s diplomatic efforts in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. The report also examines U.S.-China clean energy cooperation, China’s growing healthcare industry, and the safety of Chinese drug imports to the United States. In addition, the report investigates the East Asian regional balance of power, China’s ongoing military modernization, and Chinese domestic stability. China’s bilateral relationships are also covered, including China’s relationships with North Korea and Taiwan. The report concludes with an examination of the ongoing unrest in Hong Kong. (Source: glstrade.com)
26 Nov 14. US Army struggles with War-Zone Inventory. As the Defense Department retrogrades mountains of equipment from Afghanistan, the US Army has failed to effectively report $419.5m worth of equipment that may have gone missing, according to a recent DoD Inspector General’s (DODIG’s) audit. Some 15,600 pieces of equipment lost from the Bagram and Kandahar property redistribution yards were not reported in a timely manner by the unit responsible for tracking it, the 401st Army Field Support Brigade, according to the Oct. 30 audit. Once the inspectors made their initial report, the units involved took immediate corrective actions which have since been “inculcated [and] applied in Army-wide actions,” said Michael Cervone, chief of the supply directorate in the Army’s Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics. While it is unlikely the equipment is all truly missing ‘most is likely in US hands somewhere in Afghanistan’ the report highlights the Pentagon’s decades-long problem managing inventory, said William Greenwalt, a visiting fellow at the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. “Doing what Wal-Mart and UPS can do, obviously the Army hasn’t gotten that far,” Greenwalt said. “They should have world-class inventory tracking and management, even in the war zone, with scanners, with commercial technology. You scratch your head and ask, ‘Why hasn’t the US military adopted these long-standing practices you see at every retailer in America?’” Officials with the 401st did not document the property as lost be