Trump’s new arms sales push a potential boon to US defense contractors

OPEN FOR BUSINESS: President Trump likes to brag that America makes the best weapons, and almost always makes a sales pitch for U.S. allies to buy American at every meeting with a foreign leader. This week with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump previewed his new arms sales policy, which is meant to make it much easier for other countries to buy military equipment from U.S. companies. “If they’re our allies, we are going to help them get this very important, great military equipment. And nobody, nobody makes it like the United States. It’s the best in the world by far.”

CUTTING RED TAPE: The White House yesterday released details of the new Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, which goes far beyond the effort by President Obama in 2014 to ease restrictions on arms sales. The State Department will now lead a review with support from the defense, commerce and energy departments and within 60 days will provide recommendations to streamline procedures and clarify regulations. “It would be, in some cases, years before orders would take place because of bureaucracy with Department of Defense, State Department,” Trump said Wednesday. “We are short-circuiting, that, it’s now going to be a matter of days.