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It's Only Common Sense: ITAR Finally Means Something

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Finally, the ambiguity is gone and clarity has taken its place--sanity has won out. Once and for all the State Department has made it clear the PCB is to be controlled under USML Category XI. In other words, PCBs designed and built for defense-related purposes will now fall under ITAR jurisdiction.

If you doubt me, read on. I quote from the recent IPC announcement:

On Tuesday July 1, 2014, the Department of State published a final rule enumerating Printed Circuit Boards in Category XI of the U.S. Munitions List (USML). The revisions to the USML, which follow three years of IPC advocacy, states that PCBs “specially designed” for defense-related purposes will be controlled under USML Category XI. Additionally, any designs or digital data related to “specially designed” PCBs will be controlled as technical data.

In their IPC advocacy program has emphasized that PCB designs should remain under the jurisdiction of ITAR when the end item for which the board is designed is a USML item. PCBs and their designs hold valuable and specific information about the workings of the underlying defense articles themselves. In the wrong hands, these PCBs and their designs can be exploited to replicate or sabotage mission-critical defense systems.

So that’s it then--the end of the line for all of those who hid from the law justifying their offshore purchasing of defense-related PCBs by saying the status of the PCB as an ITAR-protected component was blurry at best according to the U.S. State Department. This is the end of the line for those contract manufacturers who didn't mind playing fast and loose with our national security for the sake of saving a few bucks. From now on they're going to have to deal with American ITAR manufacturers when it comes to defense-related products.

This is a big win for our industry and a hard-fought triumph for IPC. The association has been working for us on this issue for many years and they deserve our respect and thanks for making this happen. In this case they truly assumed their role as the PCB industry’s advocate.

From IPC’s announcement on Thursday, July 3:

"The Department of State’s final rule for Category XI is a welcome and necessary step in the right direction,” said John Mitchell, president and CEO of IPC. “The enumeration of PCBs will begin to address current confusion in the defense industry about ITAR controls on PCBs by establishing a clearer standard for contractors who design, manufacture or source PCBs for military use."

Mikel Williams, president and CEO of JPS Industries, praised the association’s three-year campaign to educate policymakers on this issue, “The new rules are a testament to the value and effectiveness of IPC’s government relations efforts,” Williams said. “Today’s action is good for our industry, good for the economy, and good for national security.”  

So what does this mean for those of us who produce and sell PCBs for defense purposes?

It means the time and money we spent on getting ITAR registration will finally mean something. We will be legal, we will be the chosen ones--hell, the only ones--when it comes to building boards that fall under ITAR’s protective umbrella.

It also means that we should all be whistle-blowers and blow those whistles as loud as we can when we discover one of our customers is still buying boards offshore for their defense projects.

It means we can count on winning all of the business we should have won in the first place. It means we now can feel free to invest in the equipment, technology, and manpower it takes to be the very best defense contractor we can be--without worrying about whether that expense will be warranted.

No longer will our customers, some of them anyway, be able to say they can get a better deal in China, Korea, Japan, or Vietnam. Now they must have all defense PCBs build right here in the USA by American companies--the place in which such products should have been built all along.

As Americans we can feel safe and secure that our military weapons and equipment secrets will be kept just that, secret, and not placed into the hands of the cloning experts in Asia. That ship has finally sailed, which, if you think about it, only makes sense…good sense. Common sense.