International Traffic in Arms Regulations: U.S. Munitions List Targeted Revisions

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF STATE <CFR>22 CFR Part 121</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Public Notice: 12441]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1400-AF42</RIN> <SUBJECT>International Traffic in Arms Regulations: U.S. Munitions List Targeted Revisions</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Department of State. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Interim final rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of State (the Department) amends the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to remove from the U.S. Munitions List (USML) items that no longer warrant inclusion, add to the USML items that warrant inclusion, and clarify certain entries. With these amendments, the Department also supersedes and thus terminates the temporary modification to USML Category VIII that was published on December 4, 2023, and extended on November 26, 2024. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective date:</E> September 15, 2025. <E T="03">Comment due date:</E> Send comments by March 18, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Interested parties may submit comments to the Department of State by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Visit the</E> <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> <E T="03">website at:</E> <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and search for the docket number DOS-2024-0047. • <E T="03">Email:</E> <E T="03">DDTCPublicComments@state.gov.</E> Commenting parties must include RIN 1400-AF42 in the subject line of the email message. See <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> for other information about electronic filing. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Mr. Robert Rasmussen, Office of Defense Trade Controls Policy, Department of State, telephone (202) 663-2217; email <E T="03">DDTCCustomerService@state.gov</E> SUBJECT: ITAR Amendment—USML Targeted Revisions (RIN 1400-AF42). </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> The Department of State's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) administers the ITAR (22 CFR parts 120 through 130) to, among other things, regulate the export, reexport, retransfer, and temporary import of the defense articles and defense services identified on the USML at ITAR § 121.1. Items not subject to the ITAR or to the exclusive licensing jurisdiction of any other department or agency of the U.S. Government are subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR, 15 CFR parts 730 through 774, which includes the Commerce Control List (CCL) in Supplement No. 1 to part 774). The EAR is administered by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), U.S. Department of Commerce. This rule does not modify the list of defense articles and defense services controlled for purposes of permanent import by the Attorney General, as enumerated on the U.S. Munitions Import List (USMIL) at 27 CFR 447.21. Section 38 of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) (22 U.S.C. 2778), the authority from which the ITAR is derived, requires periodic review to determine what articles and services, if any, no longer warrant designation on the U.S. Munitions List at 22 CFR 121.1. In maintaining the USML, DDTC's Office of Defense Trade Controls Policy (DTCP) identifies articles and services for review through a variety of methods, including informal public and interagency comment, commodity jurisdiction reviews, advisory opinions, and technology monitoring. The Department maintains the USML such that it comprises those defense articles or defense services that provide a critical military or intelligence advantage or, in the case of firearms, have an inherently military function. The Department, informed by consultations with its interagency partners, determined that the additional defense articles this rule designates on the USML warrant ITAR control and those articles it removes from the USML no longer do. This rule also amends certain language that describes items on the USML to provide additional clarity to the regulatory language. <HD SOURCE="HD1">22 CFR 121.0</HD> The Department incorporates definitional language and abbreviations currently found in various notes in the USML into 22 CFR 121.0, <E T="03">United States Munitions List descriptions and definitions.</E> Section 121.0 is amended to remove the structure of paragraphs (a) and (b) and to add definitions to the USML in an alphabetical list. The definition previously at § 121.0(b) is now listed in its alphabetical order in § 121.0. Current § 121.0(a) is moved to the introductory text of § 121.0. <HD SOURCE="HD1">USML Category II</HD> In USML Category II, Note 2 to paragraph (a)(5) is revised to correct a typographical error. <HD SOURCE="HD1">USML Category IV</HD> USML Category IV paragraph (c) is revised and paragraphs (c)(1) and (2) are added to more clearly describe the equipment controlled therein, and to differentiate between equipment specially designed for commodities enumerated in paragraphs (a) or (b) of Category IV under the new paragraph (c)(1), and equipment specially designed for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) under the new paragraph (c)(2), similar to how they are differentiated in paragraph 4.b of the Wassenaar Arrangement Munitions List. This amendment also replaces the undefined term “apparatus and devices” with the § 120.40 defined term “equipment.” <HD SOURCE="HD1">USML Category V</HD> USML Category V paragraph (c)(2) is revised to add the CAS Registry Number for pentaborane and to replace the comma after “pentaborane” with a semicolon, in order to clarify this paragraph describes derivatives of carboranes, decaboranes, and pentaborane. Paragraph (f)(4)(x) is revised to correct the CAS Registry Number. Paragraphs (e)(10), (f)(19), and (g)(4) are revised to correct typographical errors. <HD SOURCE="HD1">USML Category VII</HD> Note 3 to USML Category VII is revised to further clarify the universe of ground vehicles described, with no change to the scope of controls. Specifically, the types of vehicular control and locomotion employed are irrelevant when evaluating a vehicle against the control criteria. The Department affirms that although some unmanned ground vehicles, based on their method of control or locomotion, may be referred to by the public colloquially as “robots,” they must still be evaluated against the criteria in USML Category VII. <HD SOURCE="HD1">USML Category VIII</HD> USML Category VIII(h)(1) is revised to clarify which commodities are described therein by incorporating relevant portions of the existing note to paragraph (h)(1). This revision also serves to facilitate reference to the included list of aircraft by other USML paragraphs, and to better align controls with the Department's intent around U.S. Government technology demonstrators. Additionally, it precludes release of commodities from paragraph (h)(1) based solely on their subsequent use in aircraft included in USML Category XXI (pursuant to the procedures therein) or in foreign advanced military aircraft. Foreign advanced military aircraft, as newly defined in § 121.0, include non-U.S. origin aircraft and foreign derivatives of U.S. origin aircraft, either in development or entering production after 2023, with one or more of the following advanced military capabilities: Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) fire control radar, integrated signature management, electronic warfare systems, or the ability to engage targets beyond visual range (BVR). The Department further highlights the use of the term “AESA <E T="03">fire control</E> radar” to ensure that AESA weather radars commonly used in civil aviation are clearly excluded from this list of advanced military capabilities. The year 2023 was chosen as the production year in this definition to ensure alignment with the temporary modification to the USML issued on December 4, 2023 (88 FR 84072), and extended on November 26, 2024 (89 FR 93170), which states that parts used in or with the KF-21 continue to be described on the USML. As practitioners have confused the F-15SE (Silent Eagle) with the F-15E (Strike Eagle), the F-15SE nomenclature is also clarified. Further, the “B1B” is replaced by “B-1.” As the B-1A never entered into production, this change does not change the export classification of existing items. The Department makes this change consistent with the majority of aircraft listed in the paragraph and its intent to include future variants of those aircraft. The Department notes the only aircraft listed with series letters (F-15SE, F/A-18E/F, and EA-18G) in this paragraph intentionally exclude earlier variants (for example, the control does not include the F-15A, which is an F-15 variant developed before the F-15SE). Additionally, the Department adds the MQ-25 and the RQ-170 to the list of aircraft in paragraph (h)(1)(i). The MQ-25 provides a critical military advantage in its ability to support the future Navy carrier air wing and is central to the Navy's strategic Unmanned Campaign Framework. The RQ-170 is a high-altitude, long-endurance, low-observable unmanned aerial vehicle that provides a critical military and intelligence advantage in its ability to perform key intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, target acquisition, and electronic warfare functions. Paragraph (h)(1) describes articles used in some of the most advanced U.S. military aircraft. The changes to paragraph (h)(1) ensure those specially designed articles are not released from this entry based on their subsequent use in USML Category XXI aircraft, foreign advanced military aircraft, or U.S. Government (USG) technology demonstrator aircraft. Ensuring those elements are not released from paragraph (h)(1) based on subsequent use in foreign advanced military aircraft is consistent with the language of § 120.3(a)(2). With this change, the Department treats use of these commodities in foreign advanced military aircraf ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 74k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━