US Arms Sales By The Numbers: Which Countries Are Buying Weapons From America?

The U.S. remains on top of the global arms trade, while China and Russia saw their arms exports decline. New data from Sweden’s Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows that the U.S. makes over a third of all major arms sold globally.

European exports are also on the rise, with France and England expanding 44% and 21% respectively. Today’s arms trade remains large and profitable, although some speculate the COVID-19 pandemic could temper the long trend of expansion.

"It is too early to say whether the period of rapid growth in arms transfers of the past two decades is over,” Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher with SIPRI, told BBC News.

The Middle East showed the most import growth, 25% in the past half-decade than the one before. A full 47% of U.S. arms sales went to the region, with Saudi Arabia alone taking a quarter. The largest jumps in Middle Eastern weapons imports were Saudi Arabia at 61%, Egypt at 136%, and Qatar at 361%.

By net transfers, however, Asia takes the lead with 42% of all global arms imports. The standouts there were India, Australia, China, South Korea and Pakistan.

Overall gains were hampered by falling exports from Russia and China. Russia lost just over a fifth of its sales, mostly driven by a 53% decline in Indian imports. China’s sales fell 7.8%.

Experts expect Russian exports to rebound in the next half-decade.

"Although Russia has recently signed new large arms deals with several states and its exports will probably gradually increase again in the coming years, it faces strong competition from the USA in most regions," said Alexandra Kuimova, another SIPRI researcher.