Canada’s arms exports boom to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar
Some 92% of Saudi Arabia's purchases were armored combat vehicles with most of the shipments coming from a $15 billion contract reached in 2014 but only approved for export by Canada’s current government.
Saudi Arabia, Israel and Qatar were among Canada’s top customers for weapons and other military supplies after the United States in 2022, according to new data from Global Affairs Canada, the country’s department that manages diplomatic, consular and trade relations.
Historically, the largest buyer of Canadian arms is its neighbor, the United States, but Canada only reports the value of a small subset of its annual military exports to the United States.
The data shows that Saudi Arabia received around $1.15 billion in Canadian military exports last year, making it the largest non-US customer of Canada’s materiel. It bought way more than runner-up Germany, which imported $221.63 million in Canadian arms and military technology last year. Saudi Arabia accounts for around 54% of the total value of non-US military exports. Armored vehicles constituted a big part of Canada's exports to Saudi.
Qatar was Canada’s sixth biggest non-US customer and second biggest Middle Eastern customer for military exports, receiving $49.26 million worth of weapons and other materiel in 2022.
