The Xiomeran government announced today that it has concluded a trade deal with Roucourt. The “resources for guns” deal, as it is being termed in the Xiomeran media, involves trading 34 previous-generation ships from Xiomera’s strategic reserve to Roucourt, along with 40 previous-generation fighter jets and 12 bombers. In return, Xiomera will receive an unspecified but “substantial” amount of platinum supplies from Roucourt for Xiomeran industries.
Empress Calhualyana and General Secretary of the State Svetlana Leclerc signed the deal in Huitzitaca today, after the Empress gave the Secretary a personal tour of some of the ships that Xiomera will supply Roucourt with.
The deal is being heavily criticized by outside observers. “This deal will more than double the size of Roucourt’s navy, and greatly expand its air force as well. Further militarization of an already unstable part of the world is hardly what is needed now, and this is a highly irresponsible act on the part of both parties,” Helena Navarro with the group Disarmament Now told DTNS. Navarro also criticized Xiomera for “propping up a regime in Roucourt that is starving its people while pursuing shiny new weapons.”
Neither nation’s leadership seems impressed by such criticisms, however, and experts fear that this may portend a further alliance between the two states.
