Countertrade Countertrade or offsets are government requirements in the importing country whereby the exporter, usually in sales (especially military ones) to a foreign government, must provide additional economic benefits such as jobs or technology as part of the transaction. When Lockheed Martin sold aircraft to the Polish government it had to use a number of Polish suppliers in its production as well as transfer much technology to Poland. Countertrade has been criticized because large defense contractors usually keep sales of their own production intact while transferring their purchases from smaller domestic contrac tors to those in foreign countries, thus weakening domestic defense capabilities and hurting smaller domestic firms.