Art of the defense deal: Trump aims to dramatically boost U.S. arms exports

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Washington Times

The Trump administration is putting the final touches on a plan to dramatically increase American military hardware sales around the world, paving the way for faster and bigger deals with a range of countries from Eastern Europe to Southeast Asia that have faced limits and barriers to buying from U.S. defense firms.
While administration officials have remained mum on the soon-to-be-released policy guidance, the impetus driving the new weapons export rules is twofold, said one U.S. official with direct knowledge of the administration’s plan.

Administration officials want to further expand America’s already significant share of the global arms trade while persuading longtime allies not to shift to Chinese, Russian or Israeli-made suppliers that don’t face the same barriers.

“The logic behind this is that we need to do better and faster at approving deals with countries that we know are going to go elsewhere and buy from China, Russia, France, Australia, Israel if the U.S. is too slow in the approval process,” the official said.