Blanket End Use, Retransfer, and Security Assurance Program

In 1998, the DOS offered governments the opportunity to sign blanket end-use, retransfer, and security assurances, which would be used to satisfy the legislative requirements for future government-to-government retransfers. In short, signatories will not be required to repeatedly sign assurances in order to receive USG-origin defense articles from foreign governments.

Blanket members under the Defense Trade Security Initiative (DTSI) program have the added benefit of limited advanced consent. Members can transfer between and among themselves when:

1. The sum total of the original acquisition value of all articles being transferred does not exceed $7,000,000;

   
   

2. Classified defense articles (including classified technical information) are not being transferred;

   
   

3. The defense articles to be transferred are already in the inventory of the proposed recipient (no first introduction); and

   
   

4. The proposed recipient is either an approved DTSI country or a signatory to the standard blanket assurance program.

DTSI assurances, like blanket assurances, apply only to government-to-government third-party transfers of USG-origin defense articles. They will not replace the DSP-83 currently used for the retransfer of defense articles originally acquired through Direct Commercial Sales (DCS). Requests for retransfer of these items will continue to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the USG. DTSI is only available to NATO countries, Japan and Australia.