WASHINGTON —\u00a0US foreign military sales dropped by around $10 billion in 2016, but the Pentagon’s top weapon sales official isn’t concerned that interest is waning globally.
“I have spent the entire year trying to correlate something to pricing, and in fact we have found you can\u2019t really correlate that. My answer to you is we don\u2019t have an economic indicator out there,” Rixey told reporters after his speech. “It could also be currency difference. There are so many factors that it\u2019s not what I thought it was. I thought we could directly correlate it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Now, I\u2019m sure oil price is having an impact on that particular number, but I didn\u2019t find the correlation I was looking for,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The drop in dollar value is also partly misleading, Rixey noted, because a number of high-end sales \u2013 most notably a trio of fighter jet sales to Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain \u2013 have been delayed. The package reportedly includes 72 Boeing F-15E Strike Eagles for Qatar and up to 40 Boeing F\/A-18 E\/F Super Hornets for Kuwait. Bahrain\u2019s package includes Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“What would have happened if they had gone this year? We would have had record sales again,” Rixey said. “So we\u2019ve decided maybe we should look at this like a rolling three-year number” in order to have a truer sense of trends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Rixey also downplayed the overall figure, noting that the US does not set a sales target each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We don\u2019t look at sales like a benchmark we\u2019re trying to capture. It\u2019s not a number we\u2019re trying to go for. Sales is really a fundamental result of foreign policy. We just have to understand what kind of workforce we\u2019re going to need to prosecute those sales,” Rixey said. “It\u2019s nothing more than a tool for us to anticipate what we\u2019re going to anticipate and work with.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The admiral also continued his defense of the speed of the FMS system, following up on comments made last month at a conference and an editorial featured in Defense News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As to the jet sales, Rixey would not comment on the full status, but acknowledged media reports that the sales are “moving forward.”<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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