Key findings

Based on United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade) data, reported global small arms and light weapons (hereafter ‘small arms’) exports rose sharply from USD 5 billion in 2019 to USD 9.2 billion in 2024.
In the context of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, European imports increased by 141% between 2019 and 2024, making up 40% of all reported global imports in 2024. This surge is primarily driven by Eastern European imports, the value of which multiplied by more than ten between 2019 and 2024, accounting for 21% of global imports in 2024.
Latin America is a comparatively small player in this trade, accounting for 2.8% of global small arms imports and 6.3% of exports over the period 2019–24. Data discrepancies suggest that some countries in the region do not report comprehensively to UN Comtrade, however, so these figures are likely to be under-estimated.
Small arms imports by Latin American countries increased by a factor of 2.5 between 2019 and 2022, but then fell by 27% between 2022 and 2024—largely following the trend seen in Brazil.
Brazil is by far Latin America’s main actor in the global trade in small arms, ranking as the world’s fifth-largest exporter, and 15th-largest importer, between 2019 and 2024.
Weapons categorized in UN Comtrade as military firearms represented about 10% of all Latin American small arms imports during this period, which is well above the global average of 5.6%.