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US Arms exports bring in around $13 billion a year. The military industrial complex is a domestic jobs program that sells the vast majority of what it makes domestically. The US is clearly not spending a trillion dollars a year subsidizing defense in order to make their products more competitive in other markets.

https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/arms_exports/

I'm not sure I agree. In the aircraft industry especially the US has strongly pushed for exports. Overseas programs (TRS2, Avro Arrow) were terminated for political reasons (and replaced with F111 etc). More recently see F35 impact.

That's before we discuss the advantage Boeing has in the commercial market thanks to DoD contracts.

Your link shows that the US exports the same as the next 20 countries added together. That suggests some market dominance.

I also suspect these numbers do not include "military aid" - where weapons and munitions are "given" by the US to Ukraine wherever[1]. (But they may, I don't know.)

I agree though that the primary benefit of this is not "sales". And even if it was these aren't consumer goods. So it's not easily compared to China's approach. I'm not suggesting it's a terribly good subsidy. But it's still a subsidy.

[1] there are a lot of political benefits to be gained by having bases in foreign countries, or by port visits by US ships. Unfortunately most of those benefits have been eroded in the last 2 years. The gutting of USAid (which saved basically nothing), leaving the WHO, the tarrif nonsense, bombing Iran - all have destroyed a benevolent reputation 75 years in the making.

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