Byrd Amendment

Byrd Amendment

Summary of Byrd Amendment

A 1971 amendment to the Military Procurement Authorization Act, which precludes the president from prohibiting “importation into the United States of any material determined to be strategic or critical . . . from any free world country so long as like articles could be imported from communist countries.”The purpose of the amendment was to permit continued importations of chrome from Rhodesia in spite of the U.N. economic sanctions imposed on that country. As a result of the amendment, approximately seventy strategic items other than chrome were authorized entry from Rhodesia during the sanctions period. The demise of the Rhodesian government, and U.S. recognition of the successor Zimbabwe government, have rendered the law irrelevant.

(Main Author: William J. Miller)


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