{"id":51616,"date":"2018-11-08T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2018\/11\/08\/the-us-brought-in-1923-billion-from-weapon-sales-last-year-up-13-percent\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T23:45:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:45:44","slug":"the-us-brought-in-1923-billion-from-weapon-sales-last-year-up-13-percent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/industry\/2018\/11\/08\/the-us-brought-in-1923-billion-from-weapon-sales-last-year-up-13-percent\/","title":{"rendered":"The US brought in $192.3 billion from weapon sales last year, up 13 percent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Combined weapon sales from American companies for fiscal 2018 were up 13 percent over fiscal 2017 figures, netting American firms $192.3 billion, according to new numbers released Thursday by the State Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department previously announced<\/a> that FY18 brought in $55.66 billion in foreign military sales, an uptick of 33 percent over FY17\u2019s $41.93 billion. Through the Foreign Military Sales process, the U.S. government serves as a go-between for foreign partners and American industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What had not been released until now is the total direct commercial sales, the process through which foreign customers can directly buy systems from industry. Those figures topped $136.6 billion for FY18, a 6.6 percent increase from FY17\u2019s $128.1 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration has made selling American defense goods<\/a> abroad a key plank of its governance plan, under the guiding principal that \u201ceconomic security is national security.\u201d Earlier this year, the department rolled out its new Conventional Arms Transfer<\/a> policy, or CAT, as well as new guidance for selling unmanned systems, with the explicit goal of increasing arms sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\t