Countries that are not already part of a coalition of nations implementing export controls against Russia and Belarus over the war in Ukraine should rethink their positions, a U.S. Commerce Department under secretary said during a hearing last week.
The U.S. is part of a coalition of 38 countries who have adopted export controls on Russia and Belarus, Alan Estevez, under secretary of the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, told Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs members on July 14.
Alan Estevez
| U.S. Dept. of Commerce
"Our message to countries that have not joined our restrictions on exports to Russia is that if they share our horror at Russia's aggression against Ukraine and our respect for the rule of law, they should join the United States and our partner countries around the Indo-Pacific and Europe in imposing stringent restrictions on exports to Russia," Estevez said, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Estevez, a Deloitte consulting executive who worked for 36 years at the U.S. Department of Defense, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Bureau of Industry and Security under secretary in March.
Estevez made his comments before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee during the July 14 hearing, the subject of which was "Advancing National Security and Foreign Policy Through Export Controls: Oversight of the Bureau of Industry and Security."
He told committee members that the Bureau of Industry and Security's primary goal "is to prevent malign actors from obtaining or diverting items, including technologies, for unauthorized purposes, in order to protect our national security and advance our foreign policy objectives while supporting the competitiveness of our key industries."
Estevez also testified about the importance of controlling exports to Russia during the still-ongoing Russian-Ukrainian War and export controls with China, as well as the importance of utilizing emerging defense technology and of multilateral cooperation while controlling exports.
"We face ongoing national security threats from nation states -- China, Russia, Iran, North Korea -- as well as from terrorists and other non-state actors," Estevez said in his opening statement. "However, on top of the traditional threats posed by those actors, we also must contend with an evolving threat landscape and the use of commercially available technologies to further activities of concern, including human rights abuses."
