Elaine Grossman has published a piece on Nextgov.com titled Former Defense Brass Object to ‘More Restrictive’ Nuclear Trade Policies that is critical of an effort led by John Hamre to question recent deliberations by the Obama Administration. The end result of the talks has the potential to complicate rules for US based organizations that want to sell products and services in the international nuclear energy market.

Here is a sample quote from her article:

Some critics are already questioning, though, why the former national security leaders have set their sights on nonproliferation measures as a chief hindrance to U.S. nuclear sales overseas, when competitors such as France, Russia and South Korea enjoy financial advantages that substantially reduce their prices.

“The problem is not nonproliferation but foreign subsidies of [the] U.S. [industry’s] competitors,” said the congressional source. “That’s the real problem that needs to be solved.”

One gold-standard advocate, Henry Sokolski, questioned the letter’s contention that U.S. nuclear sales to foreign nations must be a principal vehicle for Washington in stanching proliferation.

“You’d think after our wretched experience with civil nuclear programs in Iran, India, Iraq, Pakistan and our past near-calls with Taiwan and South Korea’s programs, this would be the last thing anyone truly opposed to nuclear weapons proliferation would push,” said Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.

For readers that have not been following this issue closely, the so-called “gold standard” refers to the highly restrictive agreement made by the UAE to permanently forgo any domestic nuclear fuel enrichment or recycling in return for being granted access to US technology. Interestingly enough, that 123 agreement merely opened the door for a lucrative sale of four reactors by South Korea to the UAE. They needed the US agreement because some (precious few, in my opinion) of the components for the reactors would come from the US.
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