Without using force to stop certain weapons and equipment from going to the frontlines in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, target export controls are the best strategy. As you can imagine, it requires a lot of coordination with defense companies and international partners to ensure everyone is on the same page. In charge of that coordination is Matthew Borman, he’s Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Strategic Trade and Technology Security in the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security. He tells Federal News Network’s Eric White on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin about the work that earned him a spot as a finalist in this year’s Service to America Medals program.

Interview transcript: 

Matthew Borman  The mission of our bureau, of course, in connection with other agencies and other parties stakeholders, is to just essentially identify what are the key things that we need to keep from the parties we don’t want to get them. And in particular, Russia’s unwarranted invasion of Ukraine has really required us to not only decide that among ourselves, what we need to restrict from Russia so it it’ll be impaired in its war making efforts, but also get all of the other allies on board to do the same thing, because these restrictions will not be effective unless we get all the other supplier governments on board. So that’s what we’ve engaged in with Russia since February of 2022.

Eric White  So is that mostly the job of of just going around to everybody who will talk to you, because they are our allies, and, you know, letting them know. You know, these are the specific things that we have to ban from falling into Russia hands?

Matthew Borman  Essentially, first step is for us to internally decide what we want to restrict. And then how do we construct the regulatory framework to do that, and then go to allies, starting, you know, with the key allies, the European Union, the Brits, the Japanese, and walking them through our thoughts, getting their thoughts, and then seeing what they can do to match ours, essentially, or make sure that they’re complimentary. So for example, coincidentally about a week before the invasion happened, but when we thought it was imminent, myself and one of our senior engineers went to Brussels, and we initially were going to be there for about two days, we thought discussing this with the European Commission staff and key member states, we ended up being there a whole week because there was just a lot of detail to work through. You know, the the concept is simple, but as usual, the devil’s in the detail, and we spent a lot of time being able to step through with them, answer their questions, have questions for them about how to align controls.

Eric White  Yeah, well, there’s worse places to be stuck, I suppose. Tell me a little bit about that process of identifying the aspects of what you want to ban from Russia. Do you consult defense experts or military experts? I imagine you have to, just because that stuff is complicated in its own realm. Can you just tell me a little bit about that process?

Matthew Borman  So we have quite a bit of expertise within our bureau. We have quite a few engineers, scientists, policy analysts, many of whom either worked at companies and or in some part of the Defense Department. But in addition to that, we certainly talk to people in the Defense Department, State Department, Energy Department, and the intelligence community. And look at open source information as well, and trade data, you know, we again, have a pretty good idea of where Russia is dependent, heavily dependent upon foreign microelectronics, for example. And so that was a particular focus of ours.

Eric White  And then tell me about, you know, talking with those allies over in Brussels. Is there a counterpart for your bureau? Actually, in most of the European Union, do you find that, or do they usually just have a trade czar that kind of handles a lot of their different parts that you deal with here stateside?

Matthew Borman  Another complication is that, of course, the European Union is the administrative arm is the European Commission, and our direct counterpart is the Director General for trade, DG trade. But they, of course, need the consensus of all 27 member states, and all of the member states have some export control authority and personnel. Typically it is either in the trade ministry or the foreign ministry. And so the way the European Commission staff manages, they get representatives from the key European member states, you know, Germany, France, the Netherlands, where they have the most high tech, if you will, and the most sort of advanced export control systems, because the volume of trade they have, so that was something that was a bit more for them to navigate, but we had to engage with both the commission level and the key member state levels.

Eric White  We’re speaking with Matthew Borman. He’s the principal deputy assistant secretary of commerce for strategic trade and technology security within the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security. What have your results been? Anecdotally, I can say you’re probably doing a pretty good job, just from the pictures I’ve seen of Russian soldiers having to equip themselves and create their own helmets and things like that. But what is the data that you all analyze to make sure that, as you mentioned, that you can, you can set sanctions, but you have to actually make sure that they’re working and they’re you’re keeping these items out of Russian hands.

Matthew Borman  There’s all sorts of data sets we look at to assess impact. What we have seen is, not surprisingly, when we have what we call our global export control coalition, the GECK, which is 39 countries, including United States, with comparable controls on Russia. But of course, that means there’s a lot of countries that don’t have those controls. And so initially, not surprising, we found a spike in exports of the restricted items to those third countries, and then third countries to Russia. So we’ve spent a lot of efforts, both at Commerce Department, Bureau of Industry and Security, but also with our agency partners and allies, working with those third countries to get them to restrict the flow of the really key items that tend to be showing up in the Russians weapons systems. And our assessment is that it is costing Russia quite a bit more and taking longer for them to try to get these components. And this is an ongoing effort. As you can imagine, the Russians have been trying to evade our strategic trade control since 1917 so they have a lot of experience in this area. And so it’s an ongoing effort.

Eric White  This has been the main weapon of use from from the U.S. government over the past, you know, two or three decades. What can you tell me, overall about the U.S.’s ability now to control trade when we have our when our interests are endangered overseas, but we don’t necessarily want to utilize any sort of military force or anything? Because, like I said, this has been something that, you know, we use, not just on Russia, but on Iran, and the list goes on and on.

Matthew Borman  The key thing is being able to get other supplier governments, allied supplier governments on board. Because when we try to do these things unilaterally, they’re going to have limited impact. Because, unfortunately, we don’t have monopoly on the high tech, you know, there’s any number of other sources for high tech in the world. So it’s just critical for us to get allies on board on these and then have, you know the resources we need to do the analysis and then follow up with enforcement as needed to make sure that people understand if they don’t comply with the rules. The other big change over the last some years is we are using much more of our extraterritorial authority, because basically every integrated circuit that’s made in the world of significance is either based on us software technology or produced with the US tool. And so we’ve really been expanding the use of our foreign direct product rule to try to catch these items that are made, you know, us intellectual property based, if you will, but manufactured outside the United States, and try to make sure they’re not going to Russia or other adversaries.

Eric White  You said that you had collaborated with a few of the defense entities. Do they do contract managers ever come to you just to make sure that everything is the I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed, to make sure that, you know, hey, we were trying to make sure in this contract that it’s stipulated you can’t create this product and sell it off to one of Russia’s allies, or, you know, send it to Montenegro or anything like that. Do you ever do consulting on that front?

Matthew Borman  Oh, sure. So we have a full set of technical advisory committees that we meet court with quarterly, both to get input from them on technology developments, because it’s very important for us to see what’s what’s coming, what emerging tech is coming, and also make sure that they understand the rules and comply with them. And then we also have a very extensive outreach program. We do seminars around the country and sometimes abroad. In fact, we’ve been doing more of them abroad as well, because of these extraterritorial controls to make sure that both U.S. and foreign parties understand the restrictions. And you know what we’re talking about in our world, mostly is so called dual use items, which are items that have very legitimate and widespread civilian applications but also have significant military applications, like advanced semiconductors, for example.

Eric White  All right, and then let’s end here by putting the focus back on yourself. What prepares you to get into a role like this? I imagine having some international business relations experience is key. But you know, what else, you know, how long have you been in this role, and how did you find yourself in this?

Matthew Borman  So my background is … history major and masters, and then a law degree, and then I started a law firm in DC, had a little bit of exposure to this, and then came into commerce in our legal office that’s assigned to our bureau, so I had a good grounding in that. And then I’ve been in my current position for about 20 years. I started right at the beginning of 2001 sort of coincidentally, at the beginning of the second Bush Bush administration. My career is a career slot, but I report directly to political appointees. So it’s, you know, some preparation, but a lot of it is, you just learn, because we have so many experts that work in our bureau with other agencies, collaborating with industry, and industry is usually quite good about telling us what we should be concerned about. We try to do it in a way that doesn’t impair their technology leadership, but is effectively keeping it from the foreign destinations that we don’t want to get this high tech, if you will.

Eric White  All right, and so obviously, you’re finding some success. Can you just describe to us, you know, what are the difficult parts that you’re still all trying to get a grip on when it comes to limiting weapons falling into the hands that go against American interests?

Matthew Borman  The biggest thing is having the analytical tools to really mine all the data we need, because so much of this now involves trade from third countries to other third countries. So, you know, it’s, it’s relatively easier to just restrict with leaving the United States. There’s quite a, you know, sophisticated system for doing that. People still try to, you know, get around that. But given that so much of what we’re focused now is on what’s happening in third countries, that’s the most challenging part.

Tom Temin  Matthew Borman is principal deputy assistant secretary of commerce for strategic trade and technology security, and a finalist in this year’s Service to America Medals program. We’ll post this interview along with all of our Sammies finalist interviews at federalnewsnetwork.com/federaldrive. Hear the Federal Drive on demand. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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