The Trump administration decided on Friday to ease controls on exports of armed drones.
Washington, United States:
The Trump administration decided on Friday to ease controls on exports of armed drones, saying the allies need US technology and other countries outside of a non-proliferation pact are seizing the market. .
The White House announced that President Donald Trump has approved a move to partially depart from the 1987 missile technology control regime, in which 35 countries agreed to restrict sales of weapons delivery systems unmanned.
The MTCR was aimed at controlling the spread of missiles capable of delivering a large payload such as nuclear weapons.
But it also covered armed drones, which were not at the time a major component of the armed conflict as they are now.
The Trump-ordered change will reclassify drones armed with technology whose export is strictly limited to a category that can be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Drones in the category must have a maximum speed of less than 800 kilometers per hour, which will allow the sale of Reaper and Predator drones used by the US military, as well as others made by US defense manufacturers.
“The MTCR standards are more than three decades old,” the White House said in a statement.
“Not only do these outdated standards give an unfair advantage to countries outside the MTCR and hurt US industry, they also hamper our ability to deter overseas by crippling our partners and allies with below-average technology. “
The White House statement said two years of negotiations had failed to reform the MTCR.
The move worries arms control advocates who say the US sale of advanced drones to more countries could fuel the global arms race.
“The Trump administration has once again weakened international export controls on the export of deadly drones,” Senator Bob Menendez said in a statement.
“This reckless move makes it more likely that we will export some of our deadliest weapons to human rights abusers around the world,” he said.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
