Commerce Department Ramps Up Sales Pitch for US Weapons Makers as Europe Rearms

The Commerce Department is playing sales rep for the American defense industry, and it's leaning harder into that role as Europe pours money into rearmament.

William Kimmitt, undersecretary of commerce for international trade, told Breaking Defense at the Farnborough Airshow that US contractors are worried about getting boxed out. Europe's defense budgets are rising fast. The question is whether that money buys American hardware or goes to European and Asian competitors instead.

"Yeah, we're hearing that, and we're hearing not just competition from within Europe, but also competition from Asia as well in Europe," Kimmitt said. "But we of course think we have the best products to offer. We want to work with partners and allies in Europe, but that's certainly something that's come up."

Commerce has ramped up its role as a middleman, pushing potential buyers abroad toward American products and helping industry navigate the federal bureaucracy when a sale is on the table.

How the pitch actually works

Hiro Rodriguez, executive director of Commerce's Advocacy Center, was careful to draw a line. His office isn't out there drumming up business or telling companies who to sell to.

"What I'm hearing is [industry] very much want to help, and sort of help us understand what would be helpful to them," Kimmitt said, describing how the relationship works in practice.

Once a US company identifies a real opportunity, Rodriguez's team steps in and checks the boxes: is this actually a US company, does it have appropriate US export content so the deal creates American jobs, and is there real foreign demand on the other end.

"We'll actually work with the interagency, with State and [the Pentagon], and say, hey, is this something that we indeed support?" Rodriguez said.

After that vetting, Commerce builds what amounts to a coordinated lobbying campaign aimed at the foreign buyer. That can mean Kimmitt himself taking meetings, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick writing letters, or Pentagon acquisition chief Michael Duffey getting involved directly with a foreign government.

"We look for different touchpoints," Rodriguez said, pointing to bilateral meetings held overseas or when foreign delegations visit the Commerce Building or State Department. "We help coordinate across the entire interagency."

The numbers behind the push

Commerce has run this advocacy function for roughly 30 years, so this isn't a new invention. Department figures cited by Breaking Defense show requests for advocacy support from the defense industry rose roughly 30 percent from 2024 to 2025.

That spike tracks with the broader story in Europe. NATO members have been under sustained pressure, including from the Trump administration, to hit higher defense spending targets, and European governments have responded with real budget increases. The open question for US industry is whether that new money buys F-35s and Patriot batteries, or whether it flows to Rheinmetall, Saab, Dassault, or increasingly competitive Asian suppliers.

The fair counterpoint

There's a legitimate case that European governments should prioritize their own defense manufacturers. European officials and industry executives have pushed "buy European" preferences for years, arguing that a continent serious about strategic autonomy needs its own defense-industrial base rather than permanent dependence on Washington. That's not an unreasonable position, and it's the exact competitive pressure Kimmitt is describing when he talks about hearing concerns from US industry.

The US government leaning on the sales process also raises a fair question about how much a foreign government's own procurement judgment is getting shaped by American diplomatic pressure rather than pure merit. Commerce says it vets each case for genuine foreign demand and real American jobs before it advocates, which is a reasonable safeguard, but it's still the US government putting its thumb on the scale for domestic companies.

What's not happening here is anything resembling a scandal. This is standard economic statecraft, and it's been Commerce's job for three decades. The story is the acceleration, not the existence of the program.

The unresolved piece is how this shakes out competitively. Breaking Defense's reporting doesn't include specific dollar figures on deals won or lost, nor a country-by-country breakdown of where American advocacy succeeded against European or Asian bidders. That data, if Commerce releases it, will be the real test of whether the stepped-up advocacy is moving contracts or just generating more paperwork.