Finally, Trump’s claims about the economic benefits of arms sales ring the hollowest of all. For starters, not only won’t arms sales create a million new American jobs, but a great number of the jobs created by arms sales will go to citizens of the purchasing nations. As the Security Assistance Monitor report notes, the number of licenses granted to weapons manufacturers outside the United States doubled from 2017 to 2018. As a result, more than one-quarter of all U.S. arms “sales” last year were deals to permit the manufacturing of U.S.-designed weapons under license — that is, they created jobs in other nations instead of the United States. The report also finds that the Trump administration has sharply increased the number of deals in which foreign countries produce U.S.-developed weaponry under coproduction agreements, further reducing the number of U.S. jobs tied to arms sales.
Trump’s claims about the economic benefits of arms sales ring the hollowest of all The report also finds that the Trump administration has sharply increased the number of deals in which foreign countries produce U.S.-developed weaponry under coproduction agreements, further reducing the number of U.S. jobs tied to arms sales