This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
Back in January we reported that president Trump was planning the roll out of a new US weapons sales policy, which could result in a massive uptick in arms proliferation and conflict escalation around the world. What Reuters described then – as part of a new “Buy American” plan – would involve US diplomats and military attaches stationed across the globe essentially playing the role of middle men for American arms contractors and US defense sales, while also encouraging embassy staff to aggressively promote weapons purchases abroad and allowing for much greater leeway in terms of which foreign entities the US does business with.
Though it sounds like the plot from the movie War Dogs – itself based on true events involving Pentagon contractors’ black market East European private gun running scheme – this plan could involve the mainstreaming of just the type of weapons trade previously considered sketchy and illegal, existing at the peripheries legally ambiguous covert ops and off the books contract deals. The plan would take the seedy underbelly of the international arms trade into the light of day as official US policy, and would further deputize American diplomats as at the forefront of arms deals.
There was one problem: it appears that plan did not yield the desired surge in weapons sales by the world’s biggest arms dealer: Uncle Sam. So fast forward to today when Reuters – again – reports that in an attempt to further streamline and fast-track Trump’s plan to “buy American” weapons, the US is rolling out yet another policy aimed at increasing arms sales to US allies, and Trump himself will take an active part in ongoing negotiations, to “close the deal” so to speak.
As Reuters details, in a previously undisclosed phone call with the emir of Kuwait in January, President Trump pressed the Gulf monarch to move forward on a $10 billion fighter jet deal that had been stalled for more than a year.
Trump was acting on behalf of Boeing Co, America’s second-largest defense contractor, which had become frustrated that a long-delayed sale critical to its military aircraft division was going nowhere, several people familiar with the matter said.
In personally working on behalf of a private company, “Trump did something unusual for a U.S. president – he personally helped to close a major arms deal.” In fact, in private phone calls and public appearances with world leaders, Trump has gone further than any of his predecessors to act as a salesman for the U.S. defense industry, analysts said.
It appears Trump has finally found a niche for himself in the White House: calling US “allies” in the hope of selling weapons while promoting war, chaos and death.
Trump’s efforts will be bolstered by the full weight of the U.S. government when Trump’s administration rolls out a new “Buy American” initiative as soon as this week aimed at allowing more countries to buy more and even bigger weapons. It will loosen U.S. export rules on equipment ranging from fighter jets and drones to warships and artillery, the officials said.
Some more details on the new weapons sales policy:
Reuters has learned that the initiative will provide guidelines that could allow more countries to be granted faster deal approvals, possibly trimming back to months what has often taken years to finalize. The strategy will call for members of Trump’s cabinet to sometimes act as “closers” to help seal major arms deals, according to people familiar with the matter. More top government officials will also be sent to promote U.S. weapons at international air shows and arms bazaars.
While human rights and arms control advocates are warning that the proliferation of a broader range of advanced weaponry to more foreign governments could increase the risk of arms being diverted into the wrong hands and fueling violence in regions such as the Middle East and South Asia, this is of little import to an administration obsessed with closing the US trade deficit, even it means closing it by selling nukes to the highest bidder.
The Trump administration stresses that the main aims are to help American defense firms compete better against increasingly aggressive Russian and Chinese manufacturers and give greater weight than before to economic benefits of arms sales to create more jobs at home.
“This policy seeks to mobilize the full resources of the United States government behind arms transfers that are in the U.S. national and economic security interest,” a White House official said, responding to a request for comment on the story.
“We recognize that arms transfers may have important human rights consequences,” the official said. “Nothing in this policy changes existing legal or regulatory requirements in this regard.”
It will probably not come as a surprise to anyone that the main architects of the new policy has been economist Peter Navarro, a China trade skeptic ascendant in Trump’s inner circle. His effort to boost arms exports has drawn little resistance within the White House, Reuters officials said.
It will also not draw opposition from the military-industrial complex. News of the streamlined policy promptly sent the stock of “defense” companies surging, allowing them to forget the disappointment over the recent improvement in relations with Russia, and the containment of a possible all-out war in the middle east.
Meanwhile, Trump is set to become what Reuters had dubbed “salesman in chief”
While many presidents have helped promote the U.S. defense industry, none is known to have done so as unabashedly as Trump, a former real estate developer who seems sometimes at his most comfortable when he is promoting U.S. goods. Trump regularly discusses specific arms sales with foreign leaders in meetings and on the phone, according to White House statements. And on a trip to Japan last November, he publicly urged Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to buy more American weapons.
More recently, at an Oval Office meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last month, Trump held up posters with pictures of U.S. jets, ships and helicopters and other armaments sold to Saudi Arabia. “We make the best military product in the world,” he boasted to reporters as the prince sat smiling beside him.
Other presidents, including Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush stressed the need to strengthen the defense industrial base, but they did it more subtly, said William Hartung, director of the arms and security project at the Center for International Policy, a non-partisan think tank.
“Nobody’s been as blatant about it as Trump,” he added. “Nobody has yelled it from the rooftops.”
Former President Barack Obama would sometimes talk to allied leaders about weapons systems that he felt suited their security needs, but aides said he preferred to keep weapons salesmanship at arm’s length.
The Trump administration’s plan to overhaul the Conventional Arms Transfer policy, the framework for evaluating foreign sales, goes well beyond Obama’s relaxation of rules in 2014 that enabled U.S. arms contractors to sell more overseas than ever before. Obama drew a clear line, however, requiring each sale to meet strict human rights standards – though he was criticized at times for allowing some controversial sales.
Trump has already gone ahead with several deals that Obama blocked, including the sale of $7 billion in precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia despite human rights groups’ concerns they have contributed to civilian deaths in the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen’s civil war.
The bottom line is that these weapons will be not only sold, but also used, which also means that many regional conflicts and wars are coming. Which also explains the bitcoin-esque chart of Boeing in the last few years as America doubles down as the world’s biggest arms dealer.
Call me a grumpy SOB. But I don’t like a lot of those people. Let them kill each other off.
Keep them out of America, we have enough a-holes in our own country to deal with.
CARDIO MACHINES ARE A SCAM
10000 STEPS A DAY IS A SCAM
FITBIT IS A SCAM
DIETS ARE A SCAM
YOU KNOW WHAT ISNT A SCAM?????
STOP EATING SO FUCKING MANY CALORIES!!!!!!!!!!!! STOP GOING OUT TO EAT!!!!! PORTION SIZES ARE FUCKING 4X BIGGER NOW THAN IN 1960. STOP DUMPING A BUNCH OF CONDIMENTS AND TOPPINGS ON YOUR MEAL. COOK A SIMPLE DISH AND ENJOY EACH TASTE FOR WHAT IT IS. I SWEAR TO GOD 90% OF GETTING IN SHAPE IS PORTION CONTROL.
CARDIO IS FUCKING WORTHLESS. I SEE PEOPLE DOING CARDIO WORKOUTS FOR FUCKING YEARS AND THEY HAVE THE SAME SKINNY-FAT BODY THEY HAD WHEN THEY STARTED.
LIFTING HEAVY WEIGHTS WILL GIVE YOU HYPERTROPHIED MUSCLES. THE BIG MUSCLES WILL THEN BURN MORE CALORIES 24/7 AND REMOVE THE DISGUSTING FLAB. YOU HAVE TO LIFT HEAVY WEIGHTS AND CUT THE FUCKING PORTION SIZES IF YOU WANT A DECENT BODY.
IF YOU ARE A LARD ASS, THEN YOU ARENT A PREPPER!!!!
Agree, been there done that in the day however cardio will keep you alive. I did the weights, largely skipped the cardio, have a couple of MIs.
Anaerobic exercise (short hard burst output) builds aerobic capacity (long even output) capability.
Aerobic exercise , however, does not build anaerobic capability.
I see Eisencrap is back.
What? Your mommy finally let you back in the basement to play with your computer?
go to any search engine and enter ‘Rocky Marciano training’. Watch the old films.
that is how the real men of the past prepared for battle. fighters today train 8 weeks for a big fight. marciano would go to training camp for 5 months. preparation and dedication is
what made him different from other champions. he was not a young man. he turned professional when he was 25. his punches never lost steam. he hit just as hard in the 15th round as he did in the 1st round. he had a heavy bag that weighed 300 pounds. he figured
if he could pulverize a 300 pound bag, a 200 pound man would be easy to hurt.
A friends father who was a pro boxer welterweight or thereabouts before getting hit in Korea. He said Marciano hit his opponents arms so hard ( they thought they were effectively blocking the punches) that by the later rounds they couldn’t effectively hold them up anymore and he then knocked them not. He could take a terrible beating too. He was only about 190 lbs, 5’10” I think.
Out not not.
Eisencrap (is that German?). You have been repeating this same stupid comment on every subject posted on SHTF.
And another thing. You’re a big boy (or something). You should know this already. But when you type in ALL CAPS it’s like you are screaming. Cut it out.
Its a recipe for corruption. MIC will love this. `
Our Government Pig Fascists dont care who they arm to make big profits. They arm terrorists like ISIS and Israehell to spread Genocide and hate across the Globe to destabalize other Countries, economies and cultures. They arm Mexican Drug Cartels (FastnFurious), they arm other psychopaths like Saudi Arabia and support drone strikes in Yemeni on the innocent. They arm everybody bad, then try to disarm all good Americans with Gun bans.
It does not take a Genius to see the end result of this. Self destruction and death. Eisenhower was so correct. The MIC Mafia deep state runs our foreign policy of Nation destroying and mass Genocide as they sit in their comfi bunkers counting their riches and loot from arm sales.
I really don’t know whether prostitution or arms dealer is the “world’s oldest profession”. Personally, I think prostitutes are more honorable than arms dealers.
A pimp with an FFL, how great is that?
The biggest problem with selling a lot of these countries our weapons is that down the road our troops end up fighting them and dying by the guns we provided.
Both Saudi and Israehell attacked America. Gee lets sell them more arms and death tools. Both are very evil cabals.
Then try to ban the 2nd Amend and Americans from basic self defense guns.
Welcome to the Twilight Zone. Our Government is a Sham, Fake Democracy, puppets of the Deep State.
Even Preppers know it is not wise in SHTF to barter away your Ammo to strangers. They will use it to kill you and take everything you got including your life.
The best part is we don’t need to worry that Saudi Arabia might nuke the twin towers. They’re already down. Wufff.
_???
__
I just wish the military industrial complex would cause the restrictions to come off in terms of our legitimate 2nd Amendment rights and let all good law-abiding men and women here in the US to get ahold of some of those nice items we’re planning on selling overseas. Seems once again, we forget to help ourselves first. Note to the arms dealers…. you can save a ton of freight costs and I know quite a few guys who’ll line up to buy right here in my own neck of the woods. Hell, we’ll drive up to you and pick ’em up. A win-win for all Americans.
So, after a year and a half of 4D chess playing, let’s tally up Donny’s promises…
Lock up Hillary…nope
Build wall…not
Deport millions…erp
Infrastructure…nah
Drain swamp…teehee
Pull out of useless ME wars…wrong
Better relations with Russia…hahaha
Repeal Obamacare…sheesh
Yuge parade…sigh
Bring back water boarding…dunno here
Bring back jobs…joke
Reduce 18 trillion debt…wow
Needs better chess moves.
JRS
I think the French saying is applicable, “The more things change the more they stay the same”.
Regardless Trump was still better than Hillary. Trump might see a false flag and still act, Hillary would plan it.
Hello Kevin2,
I won’t disagree that he is probably better than Hillary, but I can’t stand her to begin with. She hates men and would obviously be giddy if she could sodomize Trump with a sword… like she was when it happened to Gaddafi.
I get tired of settling for the lesser of two evils. They all make promises to get elected that the bosses obviously will never let them keep.
Not even sure anymore he won’t cave on the second if he is pressured enough by the bosses.
ANYBODY WHO ISNT EXPLICITLY PRO WHITE
IS ANTI WHITE
I’m pro human. Anyone not pro human is anti human.
Eisencrap is anti-matter.
or “doesn’t matter”.
You just aren’t playing on Trump’s chess board (or is that checkers?). Checkers in 4D?
If they don’t buy arms from us they’ll get them from Russia, France and numerous other countries. Some of that stuff is pretty good.
Go Donald, bring those sales to the U.S. of A.
Remember, people coming here to destroy America are also buying
guns. Only about half of peeps here own guns to protect us. There
are about 80 million citizens and illegals and more waiting …
who hate us and wish us all ill fate. Guns don’t kill but ignorance is
lethal. Drugs…money…..power…..lawbreakers….survival… all
add fuel to the gunfire.
You don’t need a gun to kill…… there are so many ways to kill.
We need to stop the reasons to kill. When we achieve that, there
will be no need to protect ourselves and families.
Govmnt is always a day late and ten dollars short!
For close range air defense give me a ZSU-23-4. Keep the outdated Patriot SAM’s.
“Trump Becomes America’s Top Arms Dealer In Quest To Boost US Weapons Sales.”
Oh, please. Another Trump hater.
Trump has had plenty of help in the gun crazy department. The whole war-mongering and endless war U.S. government has been in on this for decades, spending more on the military than the next seven (7) countries combined.
The U.S. would be a paradise if somebody took away the keys to all these aircraft carriers from the Deep State and the Military Industrial Complex (MIC), and cut spending on the military by 85-percent.
“Defense Spending.” What a freaking oxymoron. Try “Offensive Spending.” Because that’s all this worthless, feckless, fully-dysfunctional government knows — slaughtering, murdering, massacring, and wanton baby-killing (that is if the wedding party even makes to the wedding bed alive).
Oops. I just passed gas. I can hear the 7TH Fleet moving into place and the F-16s lining up to make their attack pass. Ah. There’s another. Should beat Syria’s record soon.
All this ordnance needs an enemy….deep state wants Russia, Trump wanted better relations with it, but they obviously own him, so that changed.
If not Russia, proxy war in Syria, North Korea, no, hmm, maybe Iran would be better?
The “deep” thinkers are using all their brain cells looking for the proper enemy for the ordnance.
“Because we need to use those Tomahawks before the expiration date!”
Does this mean WW3?
Everything means World War III these days.