Biden selling weapons to most of world's autocracies: US media

The Joe Biden administration sold weapons to the majority of the world’s autocratic countries in 2022 and helped arm dozens of authoritarian countries, according to a US media report.

A total of 142 countries and territories bought weapons from the US in 2022, for a total of $85 billion in bilateral sales, a report in The Intercept reported on Saturday citing government data.

Out of the total 142 countries, the US made arms sales to last year, and out of the total 84 countries classified as autocracies, the US made sales of weapons to at least 48, or 57 percent of them.

The report is based on the State Department Directorate of Defense Trade Control’s recently released country-level data for last year’s Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) authorization and the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency’s Foreign Military Sales (FMS) figures for fiscal year 2022.

The US has been fulfilling its foreign demands in two ways, through FMS or DCS. Under the FMS, the US government acts as an intermediary as it purchases the raw materials from a company first and then delivers the goods to the foreign recipient.

The DCS system is a result of an agreement between a US company and a foreign government. Both systems require the government’s approval.

"While Biden signaled early on that his arms sales policy would be based primarily on strategic and human rights considerations, not just economic interests, he broke from that policy not too long after entering office by approving weapons sales to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other authoritarian regimes, the report stated.

The Intercept also reported that the US government does not specify in its recipient category the repeated use of the word “various”, making it harder to disclose the country and its ruling style, to get an idea of the exact number of sales to autocratic countries.

The revelation comes against the White House’s rhetoric about supporting global democracy, or Biden’s claims of supporting international democracies and the weakening of global autocracies.

“Democracies have become stronger, not weaker. Autocracies have grown weaker, not stronger,” Biden has boasted, more than once, ever since he became president, while his own administration arms and strengthens global autocracies.

In another instance, in a speech in Warsaw last year, Biden said the battle between democracy and autocracy is one “between liberty and repression” and “between a rules-based international order and one governed by brute force.”

“The most pressing strategic challenge facing our vision is from powers that layer authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy,” the White House’s 2022 National Security Strategy claims.

Last year’s figures indicate the record number of arms sales in years, as during Biden’s first full fiscal year as president (2022) weapons sales from the US to other countries reached a record-breaking amount of $206 billion, the total also surpassed the bar set by Donald Trump of $192 billion, according to the State Department’s annual tally.

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Apart from the sales, the US also arms up countries through its military aid programs, to see the fulfillment of American national interests.

Fulfilled through the taxpayer’s money, the US allocates billions of dollars in military and economic assistance to other countries; the largest chunk of which goes to Ukraine now, as it has directed more than $75 billion in assistance to Ukraine, ever since the beginning of the conflict.

The aid programs are usually provided through the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), a type of authority that expedites security assistance and has helped to send arms to Ukraine.

As a part of the 2023 budget, Congress authorized up to $1 billion worth of weapons aid for Taiwan using PDA.

Meanwhile, the Third World countries are still suppressed and are not provided with the required assistance and aid by the leading world organizations and countries which claim themselves as the bearers of human rights, but fall short of funds at the time humanity is in need.

According to a report, there is more than enough food produced in the world to feed everyone on the planet, yet as many as a billion people throughout the world still go hungry.

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