Above photo: US soldiers with an armored vehicle and Apache helicopters. US Army/ Wikimedia Commons.
Amid Global Wars And Conflicts.
US arms suppliers recorded a 29% jump in sales in 2024 and constituted a total share of 42% of the world’s total arms trade in 2023.
US weapon manufacturers and military contractors registered an unprecedented increase in sales of arms and military services in 2024, according to a US State Department fact sheet. This made 2024 one of the most profitable years ever, in large part thanks to wars in Ukraine and Gaza as well as the military build up around China.
According to the figures released by the US State Department, the total revenue from arms sales in 2024 reached a record USD 318.7 billion registering a 29% increase from the previous year. The top US military contractors include Lockheed Martin, Raytheon (RTX), and General Dynamics, among others.
According to the state department figures, private contractors saw a massive jump in “Direct Commercial Sales” from USD 157 billion in 2023 to over USD 200 billion in 2024. The rest of the revenue was generated through indirect sales arranged through the government, “Foreign Military Sales”, which also increased from nearly USD 81 billion in 2023 to almost USD 118 billion in 2024.
The State Department noted that the indirect sales recorded over 45% increase in 2024 which garnered “highest ever annual total of sales and assistance provided to our allies and partners.”
The US recorded an increase in arms sales to countries such as Israel and Ukraine which were involved in active wars. The US supplied arms and other military assistance to Israel, in the form of military aid, despite allegations of genocide and grave human rights violations in Gaza, ignoring both international and US domestic law prohibitions.
Israel killed over 47,000 Palestinians in almost 15 months of daily bombings and ground offensives. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
US arms sales to Israel include a nearly USD 19 billion deal to supply F-15s, which played a key role in Israel’s aerial carpet bombing of both Gaza and parts of Lebanon.
Arms Sales In Violation Of International Law
The US has reportedly violated its domestic prohibitions and international laws by supplying arms to Israel as it has done in the case of Saudi Arabia, UAE, and others in the past. Some of these countries have been accused of using US supplied arms to carry out war crimes and human rights violations in Yemen and elsewhere.
The Joe Biden administration defied calls by human rights groups and members of Congress, to stop weapons sales to Israel in light of human rights violations.
According to a report released by Brown University’s Costs of War project, between October 7, 2023 and September 30, 2024, the US sent 17.9 billion dollars in direct military aid to Israel. This accounts for the largest amount of military funding ever granted to Israel in a single year. Wikileaks estimated that this accounts for 73% of Israel’s total war expenditure in Gaza during that period.
Most of this money went to private military contractors in the US as Israel must use its military aid to buy arms and assistance from them.
The US provides billions of dollars of military aid to countries such as Ukraine and Israel which in turn have to use that money to buy arms from the country’s private contractors. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine in 2022, the US has provided nearly USD 70 billion in military aid to Ukraine.
Arms sales remains one of the largest US exports to the world. The US has a global share of over 42% of all arms traded in 2023 followed by France (almost 11%) and Russia (10.5%). According to data released by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in December, in 2023 the world’s top five weapon suppliers were all from the US. These companies have remained the top five arms suppliers in the world since 2018 earning billions of dollars every year by supplying arms and military services, profiting from wars and conflicts around the world.
In 2023 the US had a total of 41 arms suppliers in the world’s top 100 weapon supplier companies. The total share of US companies in global arms sales revenue was more than half of the total revenues of top 100 companies across the world.