US Foreign Military Sales deals mushroomed to $80.9 billion in 2023

WASHINGTON — The United States defense companies delivered and inked weapons deals worth $80.9 billion to other nations last year under the Foreign Military Sales program, marking a 55 percent increase over the year before, the State Department announced this week.

The nearly $81 billion figure is for fiscal year 2023, ran from October 2022 to September 2023 as war raged in Ukraine, friendly nations sought ways to speed their modernization efforts and the Biden administration continued its push to support allies in the Pacific. The year before, FY22, saw $51.9 billion in foreign arms sales.

Included in the $81 billion was $62.3 billion in arms sales funded by ally and partner nations, $4 billion contracted through the Foreign Military Financing program, and $14.7 billion under a “other” programs line that includes items like demining and anti-terrorism.

“Arms transfers and defense trade are important US foreign policy tools with potential long-term implications for regional and global security,” the department wrote Monday in a press release.

A few of the big-ticket FMS items last year included $12 billion for 96 AH-64E Apache helicopters and $10 billion in High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) for Poland, $8.5 billion worth of CH-47F Chinook helicopters to Germany, and $5.62 billion of F-35 aircraft and munitions to the Czech Republic.

In addition to the FY23 FMS tally, the administration also authorized $157.5 billion in direct commercial sales last year, a 2.5 percent increase over the FY22 total of $153.6 billion.

That sales pot includes:

• $2.8 billion for Italy for the manufacturing of F-35 wing assemblies and sub-assemblies;
• $1.8 billion for India for the manufacturing of GE F414-INS6 engine hardware; and
• $1.2 billion for South Korea for the F100 propulsion system and spare parts.

The State Department noted that such sales figures are not indicative of future sales, but already in FY24 the US has approved a host of high-dollar potential deals, including just this month green-lighting an estimated $23 billion in F-16s for Turkey and $8.6 billion in F-35s for Greece, and finalizing another F-35 deal for the Czech Republic previously estimated to be worth $5.6 billion.