American Arms Sales Can Support the American Worker

This piece was co-authored by Ethan Antonelli, policy analyst for Economy & Trade at AFPI.

Executive Order 14383, signed into law on February 6, 2025, establishes the first-ever America First Arms Transfer Strategy, signifying a fundamental shift in how the United States manages arms sales. For decades, arms sales were primarily seen as a tool for security assistance or diplomatic leverage. In contrast, this Order intentionally aligns U.S. arms sales with domestic industrial growth, supply chain resilience, and economic national security, all while prioritizing the American worker. The strategic vision is clear; the U.S. can prioritize its interests at home while still protecting its interests abroad.

At its core, this is not simply about exporting weapons; it is an industrial strategy that leverages global demand to secure American interests and promote the American worker.

A Focus on the American Worker

Over the past two decades, America’s manufacturing base has eroded, directly impacting the American worker. Millions of jobs were outsourced, domestic production capacity declined, and supply chains grew increasingly dependent on foreign sources. In critical areas, those dependencies now pose strategic risks.

America is now reliant on adversaries like China for crucial defense inputs, including 70% of rare earth mining and 90% of their refining. These minerals are essential to U.S. production of everything from fighter jets to missile guidance systems. Even more alarming, China has shown a willingness to weaponize that dependency whenever it needs leverage, as it demonstrated in October 2025 with its export controls on critical minerals.

This EO is as much an economic strategy as it is a national security strategy. This follows the principles of the Trump Administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS), which emphasizes reindustrialization and the American worker. The American First Arms Transfer Strategy directly addresses these principles by using global demand to rebuild domestic production capacity, supply chain resilience, and uplift American industry.

Reforming and expanding the defense industrial base (DIB) will require capital, but the Trump administration has already demonstrated its ability to secure foreign capital with over $1 trillion in foreign investment commitments through trade deals. Reforming and expanding the defense industrial base (DIB) will require capital, but the Trump administration has already demonstrated its ability to secure foreign capital with over $1 trillion in foreign investment commitments through trade deals. This EO aims to do the same by leveraging arms sales as an additional mechanism to channel capital into American manufacturing infrastructure.

The tangible opportunity to get Americans into high-paying jobs exists because the defense industry offers high-wage, skilled domestic work. The national average wage per worker in the United States was approximately $70,000 in 2024. In contrast, workers in guided missile and space vehicle manufacturing earned a national average of over $150,000 per year, while those in the broader aerospace product and parts manufacturing category surpassed $120,000[1]. In states that lead in FMS contracts, figures climb even higher, with salaries in guided missile and space vehicle manufacturing exceeding $230,000 in parts of Virginia, and aerospace manufacturing workers in the Fort Worth, Texas region averaging over $140,000[2].

Government and industry-led development programs have already proven to be a reliable pathway for getting Americans into these careers. With existing training infrastructure in place and demand set to increase, more states, employers, and educational institutions should establish programs that provide the requisite skills and entry pathways for American workers in 2024, the industry supported $257 billion in wages, which represents nearly 2% of total U.S. labor income. An increase in the number of foreign military sales will inevitably increase these numbers even further. In the first 12 months of President Trump’s second administration, there have been nearly $100 billion in foreign military sales, with contracts being awarded to 38 different states[3].

Arguably the most economically impactful piece of the Executive Order is that it builds on the National Security Strategy, which states: “we must rebuild an economy in which prosperity is broadly based and widely shared, not concentrated at the top or localized in certain industries or a few parts of our country makes it a key objective to encourage new entrants and non-traditional defense companies to promote innovation and reindustrialization.”

For too long, the DIB has been dominated by just a few players; however, pro-competition guidance like what was explicitly stated in the EO and the NSS will encourage more competition, more growth, and ultimately, more high-paying jobs for Americans.

As demand for American weapons grows, the opportunity and appetite President Trump has signaled through the executive order is the beginning of creating the necessary infrastructure to reward American workers, American innovation, and most of all, promote American security.

America First Military Strategy

Beyond the significant opportunities to support the American worker, this EO aims to make sure the United States is prepared for future conflict. The DIB currently lacks the capacity to meet the demand that would arise from any potential prolonged conflict. By leveraging the existing demand for specific weapon platforms, the U.S. can improve its capacity before such a theoretical future conflict begins.

The strategy of this historical Executive Order positions U.S. arms sales as both a foreign policy instrument and a central tool for strengthening the DIB. Foreign purchases and capital are leveraged to expand production capacity, stimulate economic prosperity, reinforce technological superiority, and ensure that the U.S. can meet both its own military needs and those of its strategically aligned partners.

This is all accomplished while simultaneously bolstering the American workforce.

The Order outlines four key objectives:

• Increase production capacity for priority systems;
• Support domestic reindustrialization and innovation;
• Reinforce acquisition and sustainment efforts; and
• Prioritize strategically aligned partners.

These goals are intended to be executed by fostering and utilizing the global demand for American-made weapons and platforms. This demand for American weapons is not theoretical; it is real and shows no sign of waning. U.S. weapon platforms and systems remain the gold standard in both quality and capability.

The second Trump Administration recognizes this reality and understands that the problem has not been with the weapons but with production speed and industrial capacity. President Trump noted in January 2026 that “Nobody has the quality of our weapons, the problem is we don't produce them fast enough. We're going to start producing much faster.”

This Executive Order builds on this opportunity: rather than allowing demand to strain an already thin industrial base, it harnesses demand to build capacity.

The Order requires that, within 120 days, a catalog of priority weapon platforms and systems be produced, in which the United States will encourage allies to purchase. This will focus demand on key platforms the U.S. recognizes as necessary to execute the NSS, thus increasing the production and industrial capacity of such platforms.

Put simply, allied purchases become a catalyst for American preparedness.

Together, these objectives reflect an America First strategy that places U.S. security, domestic capacity, and worker opportunity at the center of foreign arms policy. Demonstrating once again that this administration understands economic security is national security.

Footnotes

[1] BLS; Sorted: 2024, Annual Averages, Private, NAICS Code (336414, 33641), Show Records with Suppressed Employment and Wages

[2] BLS; Sorted: 2024, Annual Averages, Private, NAICS Code (336414, 33641), Show Records with Suppressed Employment and Wages

[3] DSCA; Reported, Major Arms Sales, 2025-2026, Manually Sorted and Cataloged