Espionage Act export control provisions (US, 1917)

The Espionage Act export control provisions (US, 1917) were contained in Title VII of the Act of 15 June 1917. During the First World War, they authorised the President to restrict exports named in a proclamation when public safety required it. The wartime regime is historical. It is not the present legal basis for United States export controls.

Authority and administration

Title VII made it unlawful, during war, to export an article to a named country except under presidential rules and licences. It provided for criminal penalties and forfeiture. The authority depended on a presidential finding and proclamation; it did not create a permanent peacetime control list.

President Woodrow Wilson used the power in 1917 as the United States organised controls over food, fuel, metals and other goods. Executive action moved administration through successive bodies and into the War Trade Board (United States, 1917-1919). Licensing helped ration exports to neutral markets and supported the Allied effort to limit supplies reaching Germany. The legal and administrative system also drew on the separate Trading with the Enemy Act (United States, 1917). Title VII should not be conflated with that Act or with Title VI of the 1917 statute.

Status and significance

The First World War machinery ended after the war. The modern Espionage Act's offences concerning national-defence information do not preserve Title VII as a current export-licensing power. Current United States controls instead rest principally on later statutes and regulations, including the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 and the Export Administration Regulations (EAR).

Title VII remains important as an early federal model combining named items, destinations, licences and executive administration. Later legislation, including the Export Control Act (US, 1940), used related design features. That institutional resemblance supports a historical lineage, not a claim that the current regime operates under the 1917 authority.

See also

Export Control Act (US, 1940) · War Trade Board (United States, 1917-1919) · Trading with the Enemy Act (United States, 1917) · Export Administration Regulations (EAR)

Sources

1. United States Congress, Act of 15 June 1917, 40 Stat. 217, Title VII.
2. United States Department of State, Executive Order 2687-A and export-control chronology, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917, supplement 2, volume II.
3. United States Department of State, War Trade Board report for 1917, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917, supplement 2, volume II.
4. United States Code, Export Control Reform Act of 2018, 50 U.S.C. chapter 58 (accessed 30 July 2026).