India’s weapons procurement from the United States jumped from a meagre USD 6.2 million to a whopping USD 3.4 billion in the final year of the Donald Trump’s administration, according to official data.

As per the data released by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), the jump in the sale of American weapons to India comes at a time when sale of weapons from the US to other countries has dipped to USD 50.8 billion in 2020 from USD 55.7 billion in 2019. In 2019, the sale of US weapons to foreign countries was USD 55.7 billion. In 2017, it was USD 41.9 billion, it said.

Major buyers of American weapons in 2020 were India (USD 3.4 billion up from USD 6.2 million in fiscal year 2019), Morocco (USD 4.5 billion up from USD 12.4 million), Poland (USD 4.7 billion up from USD 673 million), Singapore (USD 1.3 billion up from USD 137 million), Taiwan (USD 11.8 billion up from USD 876 million), and the United Arab Emirates (USD 3.6 billion up from USD 1.1 billion), the data showed. Several countries reported a drop in purchase of weapons from the US.

Prominent among them were Saudi Arabia which came down from USD 14.9 billion in 2019 to USD 1.2 billion in 2020, Afghanistan (USD 1.1 billion down from USD 1.6 billion), Belgium (USD 41.8 million down from USD 5.5 billion), Iraq (USD 368 million down from USD 1.4 billion), and South Korea (USD 2.1 billion down from USD 2.7 billion).

According to the 2020 edition of the Historical Sales Book, India purchased weapons worth USD 754.4 million in 2017 and USD 282 million in 2018. Between 1950 and 2020, US sale of weapons to India under Foreign Military Sales (FMS) category was USD 12.8 billion. Weapon business is a double-edged sword and it should be dealt with utmost caution.