Trump's "America First" Arms Order Aims to Speed Weapons Sales, Aid Industry

The White House said the order establishes an "America First Arms Transfer Strategy" to ensure the US defence industrial base remains the "Arsenal of Freedom" for the United States and its partners.

Under the order, US arms transfers must focus on building production capacity for weapons seen as most important to the National Security Strategy. They must also support domestic reindustrialization, strengthen supply chains, and prioritize partners that invest in their own defence and hold strategic importance.

The order directs the Secretaries of War, State, and Commerce to create a catalog of priority weapons and systems. It also calls on them to step up advocacy for US arms sales that meet the strategy's goals and to work more closely with industry.

A new Promoting American Military Sales Task Force will oversee the strategy and track progress on major defense sales.

To reduce delays, the order instructs the departments to find efficiencies in Enhanced End Use Monitoring, the Third-Party Transfer process, and the Congressional Notification process. The administration said these steps are meant to cut bureaucracy that slows arms sales.

The order also seeks to increase transparency. It directs the departments to publish aggregate quarterly performance metrics on how defence sales cases are handled.

The White House said the strategy builds on record levels of US defence sales. It aims to use those sales to revitalize the defense industrial base while allowing partners and allies to assume greater responsibility for their own security.

According to the administration, past US arms transfer practices did not give enough weight to the needs of the American industrial base. Instead, production decisions were shaped largely by foreign demand.

The White House said this led to production backlogs, cost overruns and long delivery delays as orders outpaced manufacturing capacity.

The new strategy, it said, will use more than $300 billion in annual defense sales to help reindustrialize the United States and deliver American-made weapons to partners and allies more quickly.

The administration said the shift reflects a broader push to ensure allies and partners can defend themselves, while the United States maintains the ability to deliver advanced military equipment on time.

The latest executive order builds on earlier steps taken by Trump to reshape defence production and arms sales. In January 2025, he signed an executive order to modernise defence acquisitions and spur innovation by reducing red tape.

In April 2025, Trump signed another order aimed at improving speed and accountability in the foreign defence sales system.

And in January 2026, he signed an order requiring defence contractors to prioritize production capacity, innovation, and timely delivery over stock buybacks and excessive corporate distributions for the US military.

While the new strategy does not name specific countries, its focus on partners that invest in their own defense and play a key strategic role has implications for India.

Notably, India is a Major Defence Partner of the US. The Trump Administration views it as a key security actor in the Indo-Pacific region.

India has steadily increased defence purchases from the United States in recent years.

- IANS