News - World: US President Joe Biden plans to expedite arms sales to Washington's allies by removing bureaucratic obstacles that could cause delays in order to better compete with other countries, China in particular, according to a report.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the Biden administration had appointed a new task force to seek ways to streamline the US foreign weapons sales program.

The Biden administration promised European allies, who have provided military equipment to Ukraine that it would be able to replenish their stocks; however, the US military-industrial complex is facing a backlog, reported WSJ.

The report added the US could speed up arms sales by having US defense officials help countries draft initial requests for military equipment that would help avoid delays caused by requests that trigger security concerns.

The Defense Department only approves contracts once a year for certain military equipment, which means countries that fail to submit their orders by the Defense Department's deadline must wait until the following year, the report added.

However, the State Department is currently consulting with the Defense Department on this matter in light of the mission to speed up arms sales to allies, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the US economy is in dire straits with rising inflation and a looming recession creating hardships for the nation in their livelihoods and prompting the White House to increase foreign arms sales to its allies and partners across the globe.

In this regard, the military-industrial complex is considered the backbone of the US economy, which is better equipped to compete with rivals.

So far, Washington approved the sale of anti-ship and anti-air missiles to Chinese Taipei amid rising tensions with Beijing across the Taiwan Strait.

The Chinese embassy in Washington called on the US to revoke the billion-dollar arms deal or face "counter-measures".

Spokesman Liu Pengyu said the deal "severely jeopardizes" relations between Washington and Beijing.

"China will resolutely take legitimate and necessary counter-measures in light of the development of the situation," he warned.

Beijing sees the autonomous island as a part of its territory and insists it should be unified with the mainland, by force if necessary.

In addition to promises of selling weapons to the European states and Taiwan, last month the Biden administration discussed lifting the arms ban on US sales of "offensive" weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Biden, who pledged during his election campaign to treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah state” due to its appalling human rights record and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s signing off on Saudi insider turned dissident Jamal Khashoggi’s gruesome assassination in 2018, also promised to cut off or cut back on the sale of arms to both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, citing their attacks on civilians in Yemen.

Israel, Turkey, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and India all have separate and joint military pacts and purchase arms from the US.  

However, as China's clout grows economically and militarily, the United States' declines.

Despite Washington's efforts to create tensions, Beijing's policies counterbalance US military and economic coercion.

China is running the global economy and Washington is not going to change that.

Source: Press TV