The State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs' Defense Trade Advisory Group (DTAG) is accepting membership applications, and is seeking subject matter experts from the U.S. defense industry, relevant trade and labor associations, and professionals from academia and foundations, State said (here). DTAG provides the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs with regular consultation and coordination with U.S. private sector defense exporters and defense trade organizations on topics relating to U.S. laws, policies, and regulations for munitions exports. The group's main purpose is to advise the bureau on regulating defense trade to ensure that obstacles to lawful exports are reduced while the foreign policy and national security interests of the U.S. are protected, as called for by the Arms Export Control Act.

The State Department will conduct the following open meetings in preparation for the following upcoming meetings of International Maritime Organization (IMO) subcommittees:

Widespread interest among other countries in joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership underscores the agreement's strength, State Department Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs Charles Rivkin during a Jan. 14 forum in Washington. "As our prosperity and security are inextricably tied to the region, so too are foreign policy and economic policy inextricably linked to each other," he said. "Trade issues cannot be separated from larger questions about America’s global leadership." The Washington International Trade Association hosted the event (here).

The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs within the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls will publish Notifications of Proposed Export Licenses that it sent to Congress between March and July 2015, the bureau said in a notice (here).

The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls is waiving requirements for exporters to provide CBP with their permanent export licenses prior to filing in the Automated Export System (AES) or Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), according to an industry notice posted to its website Dec. 21 (here). DDTC is electronically sending registration and licensing data to CBP through ACE on a daily basis, making it unnecessary for exporters to “deposit export licenses with CBP prior to filing,” it said. The waiver, which takes immediate effect, will remain in effect until DDTC amends its regulations to remove the requirement, said the agency.

The State Department is temporarily modifying Category XI of the U.S. Munitions List, after the department determined that exporters may read export control language revised Dec. 30, 2014, to exclude certain intelligence analytics software that has been and remains controlled on the USML (here). The revision clarifies that the scope of control for intelligence analytics software under paragraphs (b) and (d) of Category XI prior to Dec. 30, 2014, remains in effect.

The State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls issued the following name and address change notifications in recent days (here):

The State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls will shut down the DDTC homepage, DTAS Online and external systems, which include DTrade, EFS, Mary, and Ellie, from 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. on Nov. 12 for systems maintenance, the agency said in a release (here).

The State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls issued the following name change notification in recent days (here):

The State Department is ramping up efforts to improve outreach to U.S. companies on lawful defense exports, said State Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller in a Nov. 3 speech at the Bureau of Industry and Security’s Update conference. Agencies have “not always synchronized our actions” to support lawful defense sales, she said. In July, State launched a new Defense Trade Working Group, an international tradeshow working group and a “senior-level, quarterly industry outreach,” Gottemoeller said. “As our partners, you should be able to ask about our objectives and get a reasonable steer on the types of sales the USG would support, without going agency to agency to get an answer,” she said. “I realize that government forming internal working groups may not seem like an innovative idea, but I assure you that increased communication and coordination within government will better serve our national interests and the interests of U.S. industry.”