4. The Role of Export Controls in Managing Emerging Technology

Since World War II, export control regimes have been used as a trade mechanism to restrict the proliferation of military-use technology by hostile states. The rapid development of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, and cyber surveillance technologies has created the need to amend export control restrictions to address new security threats. A growing number of states resorted to export controls as a key tool of economic statecraft to manage the trade flows of these strategically important items. This chapter examines how emerging technologies shape export control regimes – unilaterally in the US and EU and multilaterally through the US-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC). Imposing new guardrails on emerging technologies requires a balancing act between avoiding protectionism and compromising national security interests.