Announcing an impressive, if overstated, $110 billion worth of arms deals with Saudi Arabia last year, President Donald Trump made clear the primary motivation for the agreements: “job, jobs, jobs.” The administration is now poised to expand this effort in what officials have described as a “whole of government” push, easing export regulation and oversight to increase arms sales around the world. This “Arms Transfer Initiative” fits neatly into Trump’s broader efforts to create manufacturing jobs in the United States. In this spirit, the administration has already reversed Obama-era human rights-related restrictions on arms sales to Saudi, Bahrain, and Nigeria. The initiative has yet to be released, but its parameters seem clear. Regulations of arms sales will be reduced. There will be “more public advocacy for foreign partners to buy American.” According to the Trump administration, military and diplomatic officials have been “underutilized by previous presidents;” as one senior administration official put it, “We want to see those guys, the commercial and military attachés, unfettered to be salesmen for this stuff, to be promoters.” This would, according to the official, represent a “180-degree shift” in America’s current “arms-length approach to foreign weapons sales.” Another unnamed administration official said the new approach will conform to the “America First” policy of “better aligning our national security and foreign policy objectives as well as economic imperatives for American jobs.”
Donald Trump made clear the primary motivation for the agreements: “job, jobs, jobs.” The administration is now poised to expand this effort in what officials have described as a “whole of government” push, easing export regulation and oversight to increase arms sales around the world Arms Transfer Initiative” fits neatly into Trump’s broader efforts to create manufacturing jobs in the United States Regulations of arms sales will be reduced There will be “more public advocacy for foreign partners to buy American.” According to the Trump administration, military and diplomatic officials have been “underutilized by previous presidents;” the new approach will conform to the “America First” policy of “better aligning our national security and foreign policy objectives as well as economic imperatives for American jobs