By Amanda Klasing and Susan Waltz
Amnesty International, January 7, 2026
The Trump Administration recently made it easier for U.S. suppliers to export firearms abroad by relaxing restrictions on exports to dangerous actors, including repressive governments and cartels. This is devastating news for human rights.
Firearms exports should be carefully supervised, given their inherent potential to threaten U.S. interests and foreign policy. Guns in the wrong hands can enable human rights abuses, stoke political violence, empower narcotics trafficking, foment regional instability and spur forced migration as people seek refuge outside their own country. Until recently, it seemed that Washington was adopting a targeted approach to address the greatest risks.
Back in 2023, U.S. government reportsopens in a new tab indicated that the majority of U.S.-made guns retrieved from crime scenes in other countries were illegally smuggled out of the U.S.—and are often illegally acquired within the U.S. But there are still a significant number of legally exported firearms used in crimes, including human rights violations. A 2022 GAO report found that nearly 20% of recovered U.S. crime guns in Central America were traceable to licensed exports. From 2017 to 2020, following a two-year surgeopens in a new tab in firearms imports to the Dominican Republic, for example, more than 40% of recovered U.S. crime guns in that country were traced to legal exports. In Belize, more than 60% of the U.S.-made guns retrieved in 2021-24 from crime scenes started as licensed exports. Public information is scarce about most of the crimes committed abroad with U.S.-exported weapons, but in one prominent case, a U.S.-origin firearm—legally exported to Peru under license from the Commerce Department—was used to assassinate a presidential candidate in Ecuador.
Susan Waltz is AIUSA’s MSP Coordination Group leader, and Amanda Klasing is AIUSA’s National Director of Government Relations and Advocacy.
