The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2018, in addition to including passages involving regime change in Venezuela and exorbitant expenditures on the maintenance and expansion of American empire, continues to surprise: its latest draft includes a measure that will cement a multi-billion dollar deal between the Department of Defense (DOD) and the U.S. mega-corporation Amazon, run by the world's richest man, Jeff Bezos.

If the NDAA is approved in its current form, which is highly likely according to experts, Bezos' Amazon sets to gain $53 billion in revenue by becoming the chief supplier of an array of goods to the Department of Defense. The deal is laid out in a section titled "Procurement Through Commercial E-Commerce Portals," in which the DOD would be required to purchase commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products — such as office supplies — from "e-commerce portals" dominated by Amazon.