What kinds of goods & services does the US army abroad buy from locals?

In Japan, Korea, the Persian Gulf, & Europe the US army seems to be doing a lot of business with the locals. What kinds of goods & services does it buy from the locals? Who in the army is in charge of those deals (which department or officer)?

Usually as much as possible to help the local economy - within reason. Factors such as speed, price and safety/quality play into it.

The G4 folks (Division/Corps/Army/Theater Logistics) are the ones that run that show, and they usually have contracting officers for just that purpose.

Battalion level Logistics (S4) are allowed to do some local purchasing, with approval, but it is limited in scope compared to what the higher level 4 shops can authorize.

We arranged to buy A/C's and had a couple of local barbers on our FOB when I was in Iraq in 2003-2004 for example.

In korea, I bought cloths (if they fit me, those korean women are small) I bought food and christian T-shirts, paintings, beautiful vases, and shell-work jewery boxes, korean dolls and lantern, in japan, I bought the traditional dress as well as in korea, in afghanistan they buy rare rock Lapis that is cheaper over there then in the states and food, if you don;t get parasites or sick from the food, and (I bought pastries from korea) a fur coat and a big chest and jewery boxes from afghanistan, and leaflets that fell from the sky (www.psywar.org) and in germany I bought a german doll, I wasn;t there long enough (a week) to really get to go suventeer hunting, so there wasn;t much time to buy much.

Perishables are usually purchased from local sources when possible, but they must meet US standards. Most everything else is flown in where possible. Appliances have to meet both electrical standards. 50 cycle as well as 60 cycle.