The US exports more weapons than the next 7 largest arms exporters combined

Polygraph | Newsletter n°293 | 10 Mar 2025

IN THIS NEWSLETTER: I visualize new data on the global arms trade and offer a couple findings from these figures.

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Situation

New data on the global arms trade were released last night by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Here are two findings.

Finding #1: The US is the world’s largest arms dealer

The US accounts for 43% of global arms exports, more than the next seven largest arms-exporting countries combined. All the countries outside the top eight account for less than 17% of the worldwide total.

^Alt text for screen readers: The U.S. exports more weapons than the next 7 largest arms exporters combined. This graph has two columns, one showing the U.S.’s 43% share of global arms transfers, and the other showing the combined share of France, Russia, China, Germany, Italy, U.K., and Israel, totaling 40.4%.

Finding #2: The US is the world’s largest arms dealer, by an ever-widening margin

The US is without peer when it comes to exporting weapons, but it wasn’t always this way.

After I read the new Stockholm report for 2024, I looked at each year’s iteration going back to 2007 to find out the extent to which the gap between the largest arms dealer — the United States — and the second-largest — Russia, until very recently — has widened over time. (Note: Data in these reports are expressed as five-year rolling averages, so the 2024 edition refers to arms export averages from 2020–24, figures for the 2023 report refer to 2019–23 averages, and so on.)

The results of this analysis are visualized below. As total weapons exports grew worldwide, the US and Russia’s share remained relatively steady and not too far apart until around 2014. Since then, the US’s percentage of global arms exports has risen steadily, while Russia’s has steadily declined. Both trends accelerated rapidly after the war in Ukraine started, for obvious reasons. Russia now ranks third in weapons exports worldwide. France — to this point best known as a country you have to drive through to get to Italy — now holds the title of the world’s second-largest arms dealer.¹

^Alt text for screen readers: The U.S. is the world’s largest arms dealer, by an increasingly wide margin. This graph has a blue line showing the U.S. share of global arms exports increasing and an orange line showing the share of the second-largest arms exporter decreasing since 2014. As of 2024, these figures stand at 43% and 9.6% respectively.

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1. Not sure why I decided to take a shot at France when the US and Russia were right there. Jokes (and arms transfer policies) aside, France is a lovely country.