Washington: When US President Donald Trump issued a new executive order on foreign arms sales two weeks ago, he ordered the Defence, State and Commerce Departments to conduct a series of reviews, with the goal of a large-scale restructuring of how America sells weapons abroad.
But it also left industry and analysts with a myriad of questions about the long-term ramifications on international sales.
The last 15 years have seen multiple efforts at reforming the rules governing Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and direct commercial sales of weapons. That includes Trump administration’s earlier issued new rules (April 2025) to “achieve cost and schedule efficiencies” with the process.
What seems to be different here is that the latest EO seems more of a grander vision for Trump’s arm sales goals, rather than laying out specific changes.
As a result, “Everyone’s kind of scratching their head a little bit. What does this mean?” Rachel Stohl, the director of the Conventional Defence programme at the Stimson Centre said.
“Is this just a guidance document that will help prioritise US defence partnerships and transfer decisions and that’s all it is? Or, maybe, it’s a foundational shift in the way that the United States treats arms transfers,” Stohl said. “For me, the big takeaway is that this amplifies the Trump administration’s primary focus on economic and industrial aspects of the US arms trade.”
Dak Hardwick, the vice president of international affairs at the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), agreed with Stohl that some of the concepts in the EO seem like a restatement of that April 2025 order. However, he said he is “encouraged” by how aggressive forthcoming reforms stemming from this new EO may be if implemented thoughtfully.
And there are a lot of possible changes coming to US arms sales in the near future if some of Trump’s “America First Arms Transfer Strategy” are brought to fruition.
