Reforming Foreign Defense Sales To Improve Speed and Accountability
This executive order (EO) titled Reforming Foreign Defense Sales To Improve Speed and Accountability directs a broad reform of the United States foreign defense sales system (including Foreign Military Sales, or FMS, and Direct Commercial Sales, or DCS). Its core aim is to speed deliveries, improve transparency, and tighten management of U.S. defense transfers to foreign partners. The order pushes for: faster, more coordinated decision-making; earlier incorporation of exportability and protection of sensitive technologies; closer government-industry collaboration to lower costs and shorten schedules; and stricter, more routine updates of partner and end-item priority lists. It also requires concrete implementation plans and a unified tracking system for all FMS and DCS cases, with specific deadlines for action. In short, the EO seeks to make defense sales to allies more predictable and efficient, while maintaining safeguards and alignment with U.S. policy and law. It relies on interagency coordination (State, Defense, and Commerce), periodic updates to partner and item lists, and new process improvements to achieve faster timelines and better cost execution.
Key Points
- 1Improve accountability and transparency throughout the foreign defense sales system to ensure predictable and reliable delivery of American products to foreign partners in support of U.S. foreign policy objectives, while enhancing collaboration with industry to gain efficiencies in cost and schedule.
- 2Consolidate parallel decision-making and reduce regulatory complexity in determining which military capabilities to provide and to which countries, enabling more simultaneous approvals rather than sequential bottlenecks.
- 3Advance exportability and financing by integrating early protections for critical technologies and expanding financing options and contract flexibility to lower costs and expand partner capabilities.
- 4Phased implementation with concrete deadlines:
- 5- within 60 days: identify priority partners and end-items, and issue updated guidance to U.S. diplomatic missions;
- 6- within 90 days: develop a plan to improve transparency and consolidate technology security/foreign disclosure approvals;
- 7- within 120 days: develop a plan to create a single electronic system to track all DCS license requests and ongoing FMS efforts across the life-cycle.
- 8Establish and regularly update priority partner lists and the FMS-Only List (to focus protections on the most sensitive technologies), with annual reviews and criteria-based updates to align with national security and burden-sharing objectives; also reevaluate MTCR Category I restrictions and potential expansion to certain partners while ensuring force readiness is not harmed.