Reforming Foreign Defense Sales To Improve Speed and Accountability
Signed April 9, 2025·Donald Trump·90 FR 15631
Source
Everything on this page is drawn from the Federal Register, the official daily journal of the United States government. Where this page and the source disagree, the source governs.
Plain-language summary
Directs the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense to overhaul the foreign military sales system to speed up and streamline arms transfers to allies. They must promptly implement existing conventional arms transfer policy guidance, reconsider missile technology export restrictions in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce, and propose to Congress updated thresholds for congressional notification of arms sales. Within 60 days they must identify priority partner countries and priority defense items for transfer, ensuring transfers don't harm U.S. military readiness and support allied burden-sharing. These priority lists must be reviewed annually, along with the list of items restricted to government-only sales channels. Within 90 days, the agencies must submit a plan to the President's national security adviser for improving transparency and building exportability into weapons design earlier. Within 120 days, the Defense Department must propose a single electronic system to track all arms export license requests and sales cases. The order defines key terms used throughout these processes.
Not written or reviewed by a person. Read the full order below for anything you intend to rely on.
Report a problem with this summary
Legal standing
Not yet published. Court challenges, injunctions and rulings tied to individual orders will appear here once each can be linked to its source record.
Nothing appears in this space without a citation to a court action or a cited precedent. An order with no such record is described as untested, never as likely or unlikely to survive.
Claimed authority
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered
Quoted from the order as written. Many orders cite nothing more specific than “the Constitution and the laws”; this reproduces what the order claims, not an assessment of whether it holds.
Disposition
See: EO 14383, February 6, 2026; EO 14384, February 6, 2026
Compiled after the fact by the National Archives, so recent orders often have none yet. An empty disposition means no record, not no activity.
The order, in full
Executive Order 14268 of April 9, 2025
Reforming Foreign Defense Sales To Improve Speed
and Accountability
By the authority vested in me as President by the
Constitution and the laws of the United States of
America, it is hereby ordered:
Section 1. Purpose. To serve the interests of the
American people, the United States must maintain the
world's strongest and most technologically advanced
military through a dynamic defense industrial base,
coupled with a robust network of capable partners and
allies. A rapid and transparent foreign defense sales
system that enables effective defense cooperation
between the United States and our chosen partners is
foundational to these objectives. Reforming this system
would simultaneously strengthen the security
capabilities of our allies and invigorate our own
defense industrial base. This mutually reinforcing
approach would enhance United States warfighting
capabilities by fostering healthy American supply
chains, domestic production levels, and technological
development.
Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of my Administration
to:
(a) Improve accountability and transparency
throughout the foreign defense sales system to ensure
predictable and reliable delivery of American products
to foreign partners in support of United States foreign
policy objectives.
(b) Consolidate parallel decision-making when
determining which military capabilities the United
States will choose to provide, and to which countries.
(c) Reduce rules and regulations involved in the
development, execution, and monitoring of foreign
defense sales and of transfer cases to ensure alignment
with United States foreign policy objectives.
(d) Increase government-industry collaboration to
achieve cost and schedule efficiencies in the execution
of the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program.
(e) Advance United States competitiveness abroad,
revitalize the defense industrial base, and lower unit
costs for the United States and our allies and partners
by integrating exportability features in the design
phase, improving financing options for partners, and
increasing contract flexibility overall.
Sec. 3. Phased Implementation. (a) The Secretary of
State and the Secretary of Defense shall promptly:
(i) Implement National Security Presidential Memorandum 10 of April 19,
2018 (United States Conventional Arms Transfer Policy), or any successor
policy directive.
(ii) Reevaluate restrictions imposed by the Missile Technology Control
Regime on Category I items and consider supplying certain partners with
specific Category I items, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce.
(iii) Submit a joint letter to the Congress proposing an update to
statutory congressional certification (also known as congressional
notification) thresholds of proposed sales under the FMS and Direct
Commercial Sales (DCS) programs in the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C.
2751 et seq.). The Secretary of State shall also work with the Congress to
review congressional notification processes to ensure the timely
adjudication of notified FMS and DCS cases.
(b) Within 60 days of the date of this order:
(i) The Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense,
shall develop a list of priority partners for conventional arms transfers
and issue updated guidance to Chiefs of the United States Diplomatic
Missions regarding this list.
(ii) The Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of State,
shall:
(A) develop a list of priority end-items for potential transfer to
priority partners identified by the Secretary of State in the list required
by this subsection;
(B) ensure the transfer of priority end-items to priority partners would
not cause significant harm to United States force readiness; and
(C) ensure the transfer of priority end-items to priority partners would
advance my Administration's goal of strengthening allied burden-sharing,
both by sharing the cost of end-item production and by increasing our
allies' capacity to meet capability targets independently, without
sustained support from the United States.
(c)(i) The Secretary of State and the Secretary of
Defense shall review, update, and reissue the lists of
priority partners and military end-items on an annual
basis.
(ii) The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense shall review and
update the list of defense items that can only be purchased through the FMS
process (the FMS-Only List) and the United States Munitions List, 22 C.F.R.
part 121, to focus protections solely on our most sensitive and
sophisticated technologies, and shall establish clear criteria for
including an item on the FMS-Only List.
(d) Within 90 days of the date of this order, the
Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, in
consultation with the Secretary of Commerce, shall
submit a plan to the President, through the Assistant
to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA),
to: improve the transparency of United States defense
sales to foreign partners by developing metrics for
accountability; secure exportability as a requirement
in the early stages of the acquisition process; and
consolidate technology security and foreign disclosure
approvals.
(e) Within 120 days of the date of this order, the
Secretary of Defense, with the assistance of the
Secretary of State and the Secretary of Commerce, shall
submit a plan to the APNSA to develop a single
electronic system to track all DCS export license
requests and ongoing FMS efforts throughout the case
life-cycle.
Sec. 4. Definitions. For purposes of this order:
(a) “Parallel decision-making” refers to the
granting of simultaneous certifications and approvals
during the FMS process, as opposed to sequential
decision-making where agencies wait for other agencies
to make decisions before taking action.
(b) “Exportability” means the process to
identify, develop, and integrate technology protection
features into United States defense systems early in
the acquisition process to protect critical
technologies, capabilities, and program information and
thus enable export to partners.
(c) “FMS-only” means defense articles that are
exclusively available through the FMS process as
opposed to the DCS process, as authorized in the Arms
Export Control Act and described in the Security
Assistance Management Manual (SAMM), Defense Security
Cooperation Agency (DSCA), Chapter 4.
(d) “End-item” means the final product when
assembled and ready for issue or deployment.
(e) “Foreign defense sales system” means the
enterprise devoted to the transfer of defense articles,
services, and training by the United States Government
and United States companies to international partners
and organizations.
(f) All other terms related to FMS cases shall have
the meanings given to them by the SAMM, DSCA 5105.38M.
Sec. 5. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order
shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or
the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget
relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with
applicable law and subject to the availability of
appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not,
create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural,
enforceable at law or in equity by any party against
the United States, its departments, agencies, or
entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any
other person.
(Presidential Sig.)
THE WHITE HOUSE,
April 9, 2025.Reproduced from the Federal Register plain-text record, signed April 9, 2025. Typesetting artifacts are removed; no wording is changed.