America led the world in weapons sales with $40 billion last year
The U.S. signed weapon-sale deals worth about $40 billion last year, ranking it first in the world, according to a new congressional study. France ranked as the No. 2 arms seller, far behind with $15 billion. Developing nations continued to rank as the top buyers, led by Qatar with more than $17 billion in weapons purchases, followed by Egypt with $12 billion, and Saudi Arabia with more than $8 billion.
Despite ongoing terrorism threats, total sales in 2015 dropped to $80 billion from $89 billion the year before, "due, in part, to the weakened state of the global economy," wrote Catherine A. Theohary, a national security policy specialist at the bipartisan Congressional Research Service and author of the study.
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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.
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