Pentagon: US sold almost $42B in weapons to other nations in 2017

American defense companies sold nearly $42 billion in weapons to foreign countries in 2017, almost $10 billion more than last year, according to the U.S. agency in charge of selling weapons and equipment to other nations.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) on Wednesday said the amount includes $32.02 billion from foreign military sales, $6.04 billion from the State Department’s foreign military financing and $3.87 billion under the Defense Department.

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The most sales, about $22 billion, came from Central Asia and Middle East countries. Nearly $8 billion of weapons and equipment went to nations in the Indo-Pacific region, $7.3 billion to Europe, $641.6 million to North and South America, and $248.6 million to Africa.

“This positive sales trend isn’t surprising as the United States is the global provider of choice for Security Cooperation,” DSCA Director Lt. Gen. Charles Hooper said in the statement.

“We deliver not only the most effective defense systems to our partners, but we also ensure a ‘Total Package’ approach that includes the provision of training, maintenance, and sustainment, to support full spectrum capability for our partners,” he said.

The 2017 amount — which is based on actual sales agreed to between the U.S. and another country — is well above the $33.6 billion in foreign sales in 2016. But foreign purchases vary year-to-year and 2017 figures are dwarfed by total 2015 sales of more than $47 billion.