May 15, 2024

Warren, Lawmakers Applaud USTR Decision to End Industry-Fueled Attacks on Arms Control Policies, Criticize Commerce’s Inadequate Steps to Address Assault Weapon Exports

“USTR’s decision aligns with President Biden’s efforts to crack down on gun violence at home and abroad and demonstrates the Biden administration’s commitment to addressing the flow of U.S.-made weapons to foreign countries.”

Text of Letter (pdf)

Washington, D.C. - Today, United States Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Representatives Joaquin Castro (D-Texas.), Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) sent a letter to United States Trade Representative (USTR) Ambassador Katherine Tai writing in support of USTR’s decision to remove the designation of import license requirements for explosives, firearms, and ammunition as trade barriers in the annual National Trade Estimate (NTE) report, while also criticizing the Department of Commerce’s inadequate steps to address assault weapons exports. 

In the letter, the lawmakers note that the USTR move reflects the Biden Administration’s efforts to address gun violence and to pursue a trade policy that puts the interests of American families over giant corporations.

“Restrictions on imports of lethal weapons are important, good faith public policies aimed at stemming the flow of firearms entering a country, often to mitigate gun violence, corruption, and other issues; they should not be categorized as significant trade barriers in the NTE alongside actually discriminatory regulations, simply due to complaints from corporate interests,” the lawmakers wrote.

The Trade Act of 1974 codified a requirement for USTR to produce an annual National Trade Estimate report cataloging significant foreign barriers to, or distortions of, U.S. exports of goods and services. This legislation gives USTR discretion to identify which foreign government policies truly constitute “significant” trade barriers. However, under previous administrations, the NTE became a laundry list of industry complaints, including attacks on legitimate public policies that U.S. trading partners have pursued in order to protect workers, consumers, and small businesses. Previous NTEs have targeted trading partners’ prohibitions and licensing requirements for imports of firearms, ammunition, and explosives.

“We were pleased to see that under your leadership, USTR has removed these arms control policies from the 2024 NTE report. Thanks to this change in approach, the NTE no longer attacks the arms import policies of countries where U.S.-made weapons have been implicated in horrific killings,” the lawmakers wrote.

In the letter, the lawmakers also urge the Commerce Department to build on USTR’s action and take concrete steps to stem the tide of commercial gun exports from the United States. Under Commerce’s oversight, the number of approved firearms export licenses skyrocketed, fueling further gun violence abroad. At the end of October 2023, Commerce paused some new license approvals to conduct a review of its export policies, and recently published a rule that will implement the results of that review.

“While the rule makes changes to more closely align Commerce’s process with State’s — including shortening firearms export licenses from four years to one and creating an interagency firearms export review process that State will lead16—it does not take several key commonsense steps to rein in exports – steps that several of us recommended in a letter to the Commerce Department earlier this year,” the lawmakers wrote.

Senator Warren has led efforts to take on the gun violence epidemic in this country and to hold the Department of Commerce accountable for its lackluster oversight of firearms exports, which contradicts the Biden administration’s gun safety agenda:

  • On January 24, 2024, Senators Warren and Durbin (D-Ill.), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Representatives Castro and Norma Torres (D-Calif.) sent a letter to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, calling on the Department of Commerce to incorporate a set of recommendations from the lawmakers to strengthen export controls and end-use checks for firearm exports to crack down on the unnecessary export of lethal weapons used in brutal killings abroad. 
  • In September 2023, Senator Warren and Representatives Castro, Norma Torres (D-Calif.), and Goldman (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to Secretary Raimondo, calling on Commerce to publicly release data on its approvals of assault weapons exports and provide a response to questions laid out in their September 2022 letter about Commerce’s troubling increase of assault weapons export approvals. 
  • In October 2022, Senator Warren joined Senator Markey (D-Mass.) in a letter to President Biden calling for the Administration to return oversight of the export of firearms, including ghost guns, and their technical data to the Department of State. 
  • In September 2022, Senators Warren and Murphy (D-Conn.) and Representatives Castro and Torres sent a letter to Secretary Raimondo, calling out Commerce for its increased approvals of export licenses for assault weapons and high-capacity magazine exports, and for putting the gun industry profits before national security and human lives. The lawmakers called on Commerce to revise its approach to assault weapons exports and to answer questions about its export license approvals. 
  • In July 2022, at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Senator Warren questioned Alan Estevez, Under Secretary for Industry and Security at the Department of Commerce, about the agency’s lax approach to export controls of military-style assault weapons and called on the Biden administration to fulfill its campaign promise to return assault weapons exports oversight to the State Department.

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