{"id":21107,"date":"2012-08-27T12:00:46","date_gmt":"2012-08-27T11:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=21107"},"modified":"2012-08-27T10:57:12","modified_gmt":"2012-08-27T09:57:12","slug":"us-arms-sales-shoot-to-record-levels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/08\/us-arms-sales-shoot-to-record-levels\/","title":{"rendered":"US Arms Sales Shoot To Record Levels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Congressional report shows that arms exports tripled from previous year, with Gulf Arab states the main customers.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>US\u00a0weapons sales more than tripled in 2011, reaching a record high, according to a new congressional report.<\/p>\n<p>The country sold $66bn worth of arms last year, up from $21.4bn in 2010. The previous record had been $31bn in 2009; global arms sales declined slightly after that because of the economic crisis.<\/p>\n<p>America&#8217;s largest customer was Saudi Arabia, which purchased more than $33bn worth of weapons from the US, including dozens of F-15 fighter jets, missiles, and other materiel.<\/p>\n<p>The United Arab Emirates and Oman also both spent billions,\u00a0purchases driven in part by fears over Iran&#8217;s regional ambitions. The Obama administration has touted these deals as a major stimulus for the US economy, saying the Saudi arms sales alone would generate some 75,000 new jobs.<\/p>\n<p>The US also arranged several multi-billion dollar deals with Asian nations, including an agreement with China to sell transport planes worth more than $4bn.<\/p>\n<p>All told, the US sold 78 per cent of the world&#8217;s arms in 2011. Russia was a distant second, with $4.8bn in arms sales.<\/p>\n<p>The report was prepared by the Congressional Research Service, which conducts studies for US lawmakers.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/video\/americas\/2012\/08\/20128273548544850.html\" >Go to Original \u2013 aljazeera.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Congressional report shows that arms exports tripled from previous year, with Gulf Arab states the main customers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}