US arms exports hit a record high in 2023
Speaking Security Newsletter | Note n°233 | 30 January 2024
*In my latest article in Jacobin, I lay out the reasons why Israel’s US-backed military offensive in Gaza definitely isn’t about rescuing the hostages. Check it out here.
Biden outdoes himself (and Trump) in 2023
The value of US arms exports hit a record high in FY2023, according to new federal data. The State Department assures us that the Biden administration “follows a holistic approach when reviewing arms transfer decisions, in accordance with the U.S. Conventional Arms Transfer Policy.”
Here’s an excerpt from Biden’s Conventional Arms Trade Policy:
No arms transfer will be authorized where the United States assesses that it is more likely than not that the arms to be transferred will be used by the recipient to commit, facilitate the recipients’ commission of, or to aggravate the risk that the recipient will commit: genocide; crimes against humanity; grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, including attacks intentionally directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such; or other serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law, including serious acts of gender‑based violence or serious acts of violence against children.
On paper, Biden’s arms transfer policy suggests a complete one-eighty from Trump, who unabashedly demoted human rights considerations in favor of economic ones. This morally bankrupt approach predictably led to record-setting weapons exports during his tenure.
In practice, Biden’s policy is basically Trump’s with human rights lectures. Real human rights considerations, meanwhile, appear as irrelevant as ever to US arms transfer decisions. Just look at military aid to Israel. And to some extent, the numbers speak for themselves. If arms sales were conditioned on human rights as instructed by White House policy (and demanded by US law), weapons exports would drop regardless of the geopolitical circumstances. They’re rising instead. Based on what I’ve seen so far, 2024’s numbers are on track to be even higher than last year’s.
^Alt text for screen readers: U.S. arms sales hit a record high in 2023. This chart shows the value of U.S. arms sales from fiscal years 2016 to 2023. The value of these sales reached $238 billion in 2023, towering over the chart’s other columns. Data comes from the U.S. State Department. Full analysis at stephen semler dot substack dot com. Chart by Stephen Semler.
-Stephen (@stephensemler; stephen@securityreform.org). Follow me on Bluesky.