“Yeah, we’re hearing that, and we’re hearing not just competition from within Europe, but also competition from Asia as well in Europe,” William Kimmitt, the undersecretary of commerce for international trade, told Breaking Defense at the Farnborough Airshow last week.
William Kimmitt on competitive pressure from Europe and Asia
Kimmitt said U.S. defense firms have told Commerce they worry Europe’s rising defense budgets are translating into buys of non‑American systems. He described his purpose at Farnborough as gathering industry input to identify “high priority” programs that are “ripe for a decision” abroad — the near‑term opportunities that, in his words, are “on deck” and worth elevating to Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Commerce's Advocacy Center and how it operates
Hiro Rodriguez, executive director of Commerce’s Advocacy Center, framed the department’s role as facilitative rather than promotional. “We’re not in a ‘business development’ role, and we stay away from making any suggestions to industry,” he said. Instead, once a U.S. company flags a potential sale, Commerce will take the request to interagency partners — “with State and [the Pentagon]” — to determine whether the United States supports the transaction.
Rodriguez described a screening that checks several requirements: the firm must be a U.S. company, there must be appropriate U.S. export content so the sale “ultimately creates US jobs,” and there must be demonstrable foreign demand. With those boxes checked, Commerce organizes an advocacy campaign tailored to the prospective buyer, seeking “different touchpoints” — meetings or letters involving Kimmitt, Secretary Lutnick, or Pentagon acquisition chief Michael Duffey — and coordinating across State, Commerce, and Defense during bilateral meetings and inbound delegations to the Commerce Building or State Department.
Caseload growth and the push to shrink timelines
Commerce has formally maintained an advocacy role for roughly 30 years. Department figures cited to Breaking Defense show a roughly 30 percent increase in requests for advocacy support from U.S. defense firms between 2024 and 2025, with the caseload on track to grow another 40 percent between 2025 and 2026.
Industry had complained that the approval-to-action process previously took about six months, a delay that Kimmitt and Rodriguez acknowledged contributed to lost opportunities. Rodriguez said the department has cut that interval “in half,” bringing the typical timeline to about three months. He added that cases arriving in July were already being moved to the interagency “a lot faster,” and that some interagency partners had urged still-faster action. Commerce plans a reassessment in roughly three months to evaluate whether further reductions are feasible.
How U.S. defense firms, the interagency, and foreign buyers are responding
- U.S. defense firms: Companies are identifying near‑term, high‑priority programs and asking Commerce for support — effectively asking the department to amplify their bids in markets where decisions are imminent.
- Interagency partners (State and the Pentagon): They are the approval gatekeepers Commerce consults to confirm U.S. support; their willingness to accelerate clearances is already influencing the speed at which advocacy campaigns are launched.
- Foreign partners and allies in Europe: They are the intended audiences of advocacy campaigns; Commerce said it seeks “touchpoints” during bilateral meetings or when delegations visit Washington to persuade buyers to consider U.S. offerings.
Farnborough priorities and the immediate next steps
Kimmitt characterized Farnborough as a working session to build a watch list: “What’s ripe for a decision this month, next month? What are the big dollar items? What are the big capabilities that we want to be able to sell to our partners?” He said he intends to bring the high‑priority programs identified at the airshow to Secretary Lutnick’s attention.
Commerce’s concrete next actions, as described by Kimmitt and Rodriguez, are threefold: continue collecting prioritized program lists from companies, push interagency coordination to shorten approval timelines, and reassess the new timing standard in about three months to determine whether advocacy case movement can be accelerated further.
Commerce’s push signals an operational shift: from steady advocacy over decades to a more urgent, time‑sensitive effort intended to prevent near‑term losses to European and Asian competitors. The department has set measurable short‑term goals — more cases, faster clearances, and an imminent reassessment — and will soon test whether that speed translates into results at the negotiating tables foreign buyers use to make final decisions.
