March 2026
By Jeff Abramson and Michael T. Klare

U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order aimed at advancing U.S. military industrial capacity and faster arms deliveries. Titled the “America First Arms Transfer Strategy,” the order made no mention of human rights and referenced few of the many dangers that could be associated with the misuse of U.S.-supplied weapons.

As explained in a fact sheet accompanying the Feb. 6 order, the first priority for arms transfers will be to “build production capacity for weapons that are more operationally relevant” to the U.S. National Security Strategy. The strategy will “prioritize partners that have invested in their own self-defense and have a critical role or geography” and directs the secretaries of defense, state, and commerce to develop an arms sales catalog and continue an earlier directive to improve the speed of sales.

The mention of partners’ own self-defense is an unspecified reference to NATO and the administration’s push for allied countries to build their own defense capacities, as well as take on a greater burden in Ukraine. In 2025, NATO countries agreed to spend 5 percent of their gross domestic product on defense-related spending by 2035, a significant increase from their pre-existing 2-percent pledge.

Efforts to put that promise into effect have called into question whether NATO allies and other partners would continue to buy U.S. weapons or instead build their own.

Spain’s 2025 decision to cancel purchase of U.S. F-35 jet fighters, Switzerland’s possible scaling back in the face of cost increases, and Canada’s ongoing review of its participation in the program have added uncertainty to the size of future purchases of U.S. weapons.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to indirectly address this issue in a Feb. 16 USA Today editorial. In it, they explained the new U.S. approach would build “exportability into our systems” so that partners could buy not only “exquisite” systems but also those “good enough systems that are inexpensive and more rapidly produced.”

The strategy calls for establishing an end use monitoring coordinating group, which appears to be primarily tasked with reducing the risk of diverting arms deliveries, not assessing whether weapons are used to commit human rights or other abuses. It also requires quarterly reports on foreign military sales, nominally to improve transparency, but functionally also to address claims that the process moves too slowly.

The new strategy was not unanticipated. In April, Trump rescinded President Joe Biden’s conventional arms transfer policy and reinstated the first Trump administration policy, which placed greater importance on business and included much less fulsome human rights considerations. (See ACT, May 2023.)

Certain members of Congress have been pushing for measures that would speed arms sales, in part by changing the dollar thresholds at which lawmakers would be notified of pending sales. Two of those members, House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Brian Mast (R-Fla.) and the committee’s foreign arms sales taskforce chair Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) applauded Trump’s executive order in a Feb. 9 press release.

Not all members of Congress have been happy with Trump’s actions in relation to arms sales oversight. In January, the administration formally notified Congress of $6 billion in arms sales to Israel, disregarding a common and longstanding process that gives the chair and ranking members of House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the ability to place holds on proposed sales before formal notification.

Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, senior Democrat on the House committee, said Jan. 30 that “President Trump has again made abundantly clear his disregard for Congress as a coequal branch of government and for the American people we represent.”

Meanwhile, on Dec. 17, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency informed Congress of its intent to supply Taiwan with eight arms packages worth a total of $11 billion. The Trump administration indicated that the sales are intended to enhance Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities and, by extension, to deter a Chinese invasion of the island. Trump has been pressing Taiwan and other U.S. allies to spend more on defense, and these sales—the largest combined arms package ever offered Taiwan—reflect that outlook.

However, the huge size and price tag of the package have provoked strenuous opposition from China at a time when the White House reportedly seeks less contentious relations with Beijing and there exists reinforced opposition in Taiwan’s parliament to increased military spending and arms imports.