Introduced by members of the committee’s bipartisan Foreign Arms Sales Task Force set up to investigate and help resolve existing acquisition hurdles, the six bills include provisions to incentivize domestic capabilities and munitions manufacturing, and expand other nations’ options to adopt American-made defense articles.

“We have to make sure the process that’s put in place is effective, it has the right level of accountability and that it delivers,” the task force’s chairman, Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., told DefenseScoop in an interview on Wednesday.

Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) refer to two methods the U.S. applies to sell and provide equipment, technology and services to other nations. FMS is a government-to-government process where the U.S. serves as an intermediary between a foreign country and a U.S. defense contractor, while DCS involves direct contracts between other nations and American vendors, with the U.S. government overseeing export controls and licensing. 

In the aftermath of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and separate conflicts in the Middle East that emerged after Iran-backed Hamas attacked Israel in 2023, countries’ interest in buying U.S. weapons has grown substantially. 

According to data from the State Department, the U.S. transferred assets with a total value of $117.9 billion via the FMS system in fiscal 2024, which represented a 45.7% boost from the previous fiscal year — and at the time marked the highest-ever amount of sales and assistance America provided to foreign nations in the span of one year.

However, experts have raised increasing concerns in recent years about bureaucratic and modernization issues that increasingly plague these procurement processes, like lengthy requirements leading to delivery delays, complexities that result in a lack of oversight and transparency, and other obstacles that ultimately impact U.S. competitiveness.

“Unfortunately, what’s happening now is that our allies — we expect them to fight with us. And what happens is they pay for weapon systems upfront, but by the time that they get them, the weapon systems are going to be obsolete in many cases, because the battlefield is changing so rapidly. Particularly with [unmanned aerial vehicles] and autonomous weaponry and missile systems, by the time we get the equipment to them, it’s oftentimes obsolete,” Zinke said.

The U.S. industrial base for military hardware depends heavily on foreign military sales, he noted.

In April, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the government to essentially overhaul its current approach to transferring defense software and hardware. 

A few weeks before that, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., launched the FMS Task Force and named Zinke and Ranking Member Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Penn., to lead it.

To shape the creation of their six new proposals, the task force heard from international partners, defense industry stakeholders, and U.S. government officials from multiple agencies to gain feedback on where there are needs for reform.

The overarching vision, Zinke said, was for the “working group to actually address how to restructure foreign military sales so it meets [the president’s] goals.”

According to a fact sheet viewed by DefenseScoop, the six task force-led measures that moved forward in Tuesday’s markup include: 

• Streamlining Foreign Military Sales Act — introduced by Zinke, and Rep. James Panetta, D-Calif.; would raise the Congressional Notification value thresholds to levels requested by the Trump Administration’s April mandate
• AUKUS Reform for Military Optimization and Review (ARMOR) Act — introduced by Dean and Rep. Young Kim, R-Calif.; seeks to “address a variety of impediments” to trilateral security partnership’s Pillar II implementation 
• ITAR Licensing Reform Act — introduced by Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Wash.; would codify the prioritization requirement in Trump’s directive by requiring the State Department to establish a list of priority partners and end users for DCS and creating a time-bound process for issuing such licenses. 
• Made-In-America Defense Act — introduced by Rep. Sheri Biggs, R-S.C.; would codify the FMS-only list review requirement in Trump’s order and direct the Departments of State and Defense to conduct an annual review of that list
• Missile Technology Control Review Act — introduced by Reps. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas; would amend the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 to allow for expedited defense trade with nations that the president determines to be eligible for an exemption
• Abraham Accords Defense Against Terror Act — introduced by Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., and Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla.; would reduce bureaucratic hurdles for regional partners that commit to fighting the threat posed by Iran and its proxies by creating an expedited formal review process for defense sales to these partners

When asked if he’s confident all of the proposals will pass through the full Senate, Zinke said “I think they’re necessary.”

He added that the task force has also been working closely with federal departments and human rights organizations to confront the potential for misuse, as the current process has been criticized for being difficult to monitor U.S. military equipment and associated civilian casualties.

“I think you need to make sure you have the authorities in place to do it. That means the decision process has to take in consideration things like the Leahy Act, child trafficking and child soldiers. There’s a lot of things in law that need to be, on a sale, absolutely adhered to,” Zinke told DefenseScoop.

After serving as a Navy SEAL from 1986 to 2008, he went on to become the first-ever SEAL elected to the House of Representatives — and the first to occupy a position in the Cabinet, when he was tapped as secretary of interior during the first Trump administration.

Drawing from his experiences as a Naval Special Warfare Officer, the congressman said he understands “how important currency is on the battlefield, and the currency is the best technology, because sometimes six months makes a difference.”

“What I saw [as a SEAL] was a system that was multiple departments with different objectives, unable to communicate with each other. That resulted in our allies paying for equipment upfront, oftentimes receiving obsolete equipment, but that equipment is most assuredly always late. With peacetime, you could take it out of the stockpile, right, because, you’re not shooting that much,” Zinke said, suggesting the U.S. supply chain is not presently equipped for wartime demands.

With that tenure, plus his time as a businessman, Zinke said he felt uniquely positioned to steer the FMS Task Force. He noted he has “excellent relationships” with Trump, as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“Congress should step up and do our part, making sure that there’s still transparency and oversight, because that’s Article One. And I think we can shake it up a little and present our recommendations to Hegseth and Rubio — which we’re doing — and then pass a series of bills to make sure that we update and get the authorities where necessary in order to, again, deliver on what we’re promising,” Zinke told DefenseScoop. 

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A senior committee staff official involved in the meeting briefed a small group of reporters Thursday about key issues the stakeholders’ referenced. They also shared new details about the bipartisan group’s six-month plan to influence major government reforms targeting capabilities transfer and acquisition options.

“[HFAC Chairman Rep. Brian] Mast and his fellow members of the committee on both sides of the aisle have long recognized the impact that the delays and lack of transparency associated with our current foreign arms sales process has on national security and our ability to boost interoperability with our partners,” the official said.

Mast, R-Fla., launched the task force in late March with Reps. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., and Madeleine Dean, D-Penn., at the helm.

America’s existing mechanisms for foreign military sales are seen by many as lagging behind global demand.

“In recent years, our allies must often choose between waiting on the U.S. for needed defense capabilities — or potentially looking elsewhere, at the expense of U.S. influence and strategic priorities, domestic defense manufacturing and American jobs,” the senior committee staff official told reporters.

The new group aims to build on progress led by a similar congressional “TIGER” team and task force that operated in a prior session, which the official noted put forward multiple policy and lawmaking recommendations, including some that were advanced to the committee.

“This time around, obviously, we’ll be working on a report that will further legislative and policy goals. And we’ve had initial engagements with the [second Trump] administration and we are waiting for the executive order, as well,” the official said. 

As they suggested, reports have recently surfaced that President Donald Trump’s new appointees are exploring an executive mandate that would ease certain rules that govern U.S. military equipment and service exports. 

“I think we’ve seen an extra ‘wind in the sail,’ in terms of what has been something that Congress has been involved with, that’s linked up with the administration,” the official said.

They noted that the new task force aims to expand upon some of the momentum Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz helped influence during his tenure serving in Congress and on that previous TIGER team in 2024. 

Beyond reporting and resources to help stakeholders “digest” any forthcoming executive orders, the team also hopes to pave the way for interdepartmental memorandums and other instructions or guidance for agency leadership.

“It’s fair to say this will be a pretty broad look. If we were to have this effort 10 years ago, maybe autonomous [systems] wouldn’t be as big of a focus, but I think it’s emblematic of an issue that needs additional attention as technology has advanced … [and this] challenging weapon sales process isn’t able to keep up with cutting-edge advances in technology that support the warfighter for ourselves and that of our allies,” the senior committee staff official told DefenseScoop.

In America, domestically produced defense assets and services that are delivered to foreign countries are regulated by Congress. These transactions generally entail either government-to-government sales (Foreign Military Sales, or FMS) or Direct Commercial Sales (DCS). 

“I will also quickly mention that the Trump administration is laser-focused on getting the FMS and DCS process where it needs to be — and President Trump has put the right people in the right positions to make that happen,” the official said.

They added that the new task force is “taking a wider view” compared to efforts led by Waltz and others during the last session, by focusing on reforms across both FMS and DCS.

Lawmakers who participated in Wednesday’s engagement heard insights and recommendations from nearly two dozen attendees. The official noted the industry participants were broadly “representing DOD primes, innovative startups, small arms manufacturers.”

Regarding main themes from the confab, the official said: “First, the foreign arm sales process as it stands today is overly complex, lacks transparency and poses significant risk to American competitiveness, to our national security and that of our allies. Second, charting an effective path forward will require bipartisan and interagency buy-in. Lastly, it’s safe to say that each participant recognized the urgency for making reforms to the process and ensuring America can get the right weapons to our allies and partners as fast as possible.”

Going forward, the task force will “continue to hear from those on the frontlines of this issue,” the official told reporters.

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The move came on the heels of a “Tiger Team” review involving officials from across the department, which highlighted a number of shortcomings and systemic challenges with the current setup that make it harder to procure and transfer critical technology to international allies and partners.

Austin on Tuesday issued a series of directives to officials and agencies that implement arms exports and security cooperation.

“To accelerate discussions with allies and partner nations about FMS requirements and reduce delays during the FMS case lifecycle, the Department will change the way it organizes, trains, and equips for security cooperation, including by establishing a Defense Security Cooperation Service on par with the Defense Attaché Service,” the Pentagon said in a release.

To lower barriers to the export of key capabilities, “the Department will review and update relevant policies and empower accountable officials to improve the efficiency of the review and release of technology to allies and partner nations. The Department will also continue to support interagency efforts focused on technology review and release,” it added.

Other steps to be taken include developing a methodology to facilitate non-programs of record, establishing contract award standards and metrics, and creating “process maps” to monitor the FMS prioritization and award process.

Another key goal is expanding defense industrial base (DIB) capacity to not only produce items needed by the U.S. military, faster — but also supply foreign partners.

“The Department will incorporate ally and partner requirements into ongoing efforts to expand DIB production capacity. This will include developing a comprehensive study to incentivize DIB investment in production capacity and building surge capability for high-demand, low-supply platforms, systems, and services. The strategy will include use of multi-year contracts; enhanced use of the Special Defense Acquisition Fund; five-year predictive analyses of partner demand; and sustained engagement with the DIB,” per the Pentagon release.

Austin also directed DOD officials to work with other stakeholders in the FMS process, including the State Department and Congress, to identify additional opportunities for improvement.

Notably, the Pentagon is setting up a permanent Continuous Process Improvement Board (CPIB) tasked with making sure the Tiger Team recommendations are actually implemented, tracking metrics and making more adjustments over time. This panel will report to the secretary of defense.

“We know that there are consistent challenges inherent in FMS and that this is something that requires our senior leadership to keep a close eye on over time. So we’re committing as I said, to a … continuous process improvement initiative. It will involve using modern technology to collect data, to establish metrics where we are, I think, collectively committed to embracing a more data-driven approach to FMS,” Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Sasha Baker — who co-led the Tiger Team with Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Radha Plumb — told reporters during a briefing at the Pentagon on Tuesday.

DefenseScoop asked Baker if the changes were also aimed at improving the transfer of technologies like software and artificial intelligence capabilities, not just hardware and services.

“What we’ve looked at is the system as a whole and there any number of recommendations that we’re making that I think will benefit the process, regardless of which widget is coming out on the back end. It may, to your point, be the case that as we move further into things like AI, for example, we may discover that there are unique challenges there that require unique or more bespoke solutions. Part of the reason we have this Continuous Process Improvement Board is to identify and raise those issues early so that we can get after them and we don’t have to sort of wait for years and then come back and say, ‘OK, well, we haven’t really been doing this right, so let’s fix it.’ Let’s fix it on the front end,” Baker said.

As new technologies emerge, the Pentagon will have to figure out which ones can be transferred to allies and partners and which ones need to be more closely held.

“Particularly as we move into, to your point earlier, increasingly advanced technologies, how do we ensure that we have a process in place to adjudicate what can be released and what needs to stay proprietary to the United States? That’s not a new problem, it’s not something that we’ve just uncovered today or over the course of this [Tiger Team] process. But we do think that we’ve put in place some recommendations here that if we follow through on them are going to address what has been, frankly, a long-standing pain point for the department,” Baker said.

Plumb added: “I think some of the exportability work we do now and looking at what exportability looks on both hardware software and then the integrated system … is going to be helpful, both for space and for things like software-enabled capabilities, AI, etc., so that that work is transferable. And then on the hardware production itself, much like all of our sort of overall hardware contracting and production, that … very much should be helped by the process to speed the contracting, set targets on those contracting, but then make sure we are appropriately capturing partner demand for that and incorporating that in the production lines for the capabilities we need.”

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