<text id=00he0503><title>Importance of Foreign Sales</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>Importance of Foreign Sales</hdr><body>
<p>Foreign sales always had taken a large portion of American output, not only in the aircraft industry. China was the most important customer from 1925 through 1938, buying approximately 13 per cent of the total US export volume. During those years, the Chinese bought 19,392 military planes from the United States.
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<p>Aircraft exports in the late 1930s accounted for about one-third of total sales, but they brought in about one-half of the profits. It was good business, and Congress, ever alert to the needs of free enterprise, passed a 1937 law allowing arms sales to non-belligerent customers. The items had to be paid for in cash, and the customer had to take delivery in the United States. Remember that the country was isolationist then, and there was still strong public sentiment against arms sellers as 'merchants of death'. Hence the specification for non-belligerent customers by Congress.
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<p>Early in 1938, a French military mission asked for, and received, permission to fly the Curtiss P-36A, then the latest service pursuit. In January 1039, another French mission visited the Douglas plant, and one official flew in the experimental Douglas Model 7B. The plane crashed, and the officer was taken to hospital and admitted under an assumed name. The secret leaked out and there was a Congressional outcry from a few of the die-hard isolationists They thought it was illegal, or immoral, or something to allow a foreign military officer to fly in a US military craft. But no law had been broken, and the incident opened the door wide to foreign sales.
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<p>A month after the accident, the British purchasing mission increased its US orders to 650 aircraft. Their investment in aircraft and facilities at Lockheed and North American alone totalled $25 million. A few days later, the French ordered 615 warplanes from Curtiss, Douglas, Martin and North American for more than $60 million. Engine orders for the planes were placed with Wright Aeronautical and with Pratt & Whitney. The British and French were not the only buyers. The Australians, Belgians, Canadians, Iraqis (who later became Axis allies), Norwegians and Swedes also ordered military aircraft for their own forces. And in the same year, almost $1 million worth of planes went to the Russians.
