Pentagon Updates Policy on FMS Only List, Changes Name
The Defense Department is updating guidance for its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Only List to revise the items that are included and to create more opportunities for countries to buy U.S. defense items through direct commercial sales, the agency said in a new memo. The Pentagon is also changing the name of the list from the FMS Only List to the Government-to-Government (G2G) Only List.
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The changes are meant to implement an April executive order that directed the Defense and State departments to review and update the list of defense items that can be bought only through the FMS process and to establish clear criteria for including an item on the list (see 2504100009). The memo, dated Oct. 15 but not released until Oct. 31, aims to focus “protections solely on our most sensitive and sophisticated technologies,” it said.
“Renewed rigor is being placed on the process of authenticating defense articles being considered as available via G2G mechanisms only,” the Pentagon said. “This will provide more opportunities for our partners to purchase items via Direct Commercial Sales.”
The memo set out new criteria under which defense articles and services may be designated as G2G-only, including:
- The most sensitive and sophisticated technology requiring the highest degree of protection, “which the FMS system can uniquely apply to the transfer and monitoring of defense articles. The test for determining the most sensitive and sophisticated technology is whether its unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to U.S. critical military or intelligence advantage.”
- Any item “required to be sold on a G2G basis due to a legislative requirement, treaty obligation, or G2G agreement with a foreign partner to which the United States is a party.”
- Items that are solely sourced from the U.S. government or that are “critically dependent on provision of USG-sourced equipment, data, and/or services.”
The memo also eliminated language that had required multiple levels of reviews, including by the State Department, for revising the list. It also added that the “inclusion of a defense article, component, or service on the G2G-Only list should not be understood to prohibit approval of an export license in furtherance of a” U.S. government-authorized G2G program.
“In order to support uniform application of export policy and provide transparency to industry, the G2G-Only list is designed to provide a consolidated reference for defense articles or services where mode of sale has been limited as a matter of policy,” according to the memo. “The list applies to transfers of articles or services made to a foreign ultimate end-user and is not meant to limit or prohibit exports or imports of components which support a USG program or contract (e.g. foreign sub-contract suppliers to a U.S. Prime vendor executing a USG program) unless explicitly stated.”