During the first leg of his first international trip as president, Donald Trump is expected to announce a huge, $110 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia that will include counterterrorism, maritime security, aircraft, missile-defense and cybersecurity capabilities.
When finalized, the deal will likely be the largest single arms deal America has made with a foreign ally, according to a White House statement.
“This package of defense equipment and services supports the long-term security of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region in the face of Iranian threats,” the White House said. “It also bolsters the Kingdom’s ability to contribute to counterterrorism operations across the region, reducing the burden on the U.S. military to conduct those operations.”
The package deal is “threat-based” and provides capability in five categories: border security and counterterrorism; maritime and coastal security; air force modernization; air-and-missile defense; and cyber security and communications.
Jon Alterman, senior vice president and director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the Saudis are positioning themselves on the U.S. side of the global war on terrorism and extremism. Their multi-pronged strategy involves deepening Saudi investment in U.S. military technology and establishment of regional security cooperation in the style of NATO, he said during a May 19 teleconference with reporters.
“They are lining up all kinds of deals that will create American jobs: investing in American infrastructure, an arms deal that by most estimates will encompass more than $100 billion in sales,” he said. “They’re going to be talking about something that looks more or less like an Arab NATO. They’re going to be talking about counter-radicalization. I think the Saudis are trying to think of everything they can think of to try to put Saudi on the right side – on the right side of American priorities.”
The State Department has approved billions of dollars in sales to Saudi Arabia since August 2016 when the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) green-lighted a $1.15 billion deal for 306 M1A2S Saudi Abrams Main Battle Tanks, 20 M88Al/A2 Heavy Equipment Recovery Combat Utility Lift Evacuation System Armored Recovery Vehicles, an arsenal of small arms to accompany them, training and support.
A $3.5 billion deal was approved in December for 48 Boeing [BA] CH-47 Chinook heavy lift helicopters, 112 T55 engines, 116 GPS inertial navigation systems, 58 AAR-57 common missile warning systems and four dozen M240H machine guns. The next month DCSA announced approval of a $525 million deal for 10 persistent threat detection system aerostats, 14 ground moving target indicator radars, 26 MX-20 electro-optic infrared cameras and 10 communications intelligence sensors.
American defense contractors should gain greater access to the Saudi and wider Middle East market as a result of the deal, according to the White House, which said it would eventually support tens of thousands of jobs in the U.S. defense industrial base.
The White House designed the package to support a “regional security architecture that advances defense cooperation” for both Saudi Arabia and the U.S. military with other countries in the Middle East. It will provide both material military needs and training and institutional support for the Saudi military through education, advising and strategy and planning doctrine.
Saudi Arabia has relied on the U.S., at least in large part, for its military and security capabilities since the 1930s, Alterman said. Inking major, multiyear arms deals with the U.S. government will solidify that tie into the future.
“The Saudis not only don’t have any alternative in mind, they don’t have a process by which they could come up with an alternative,” he said. “So it’s really an important strategic imperative to rebuild this relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia.”
None of that should detract or diminish the U.S. alliance with Israel, its closest ally in the region, the White House was careful to say in a statement.
“There is nothing in this package of sales – taken individually or as a whole – that will undermine Israel’s qualitative military edge,” the White House said. “As a matter of law and of longstanding policy, the United States is committed to ensuring Israel maintains a qualitative military edge in the region.”
The U.S. last year finalized a $38 billion military aid package to Israel aimed at upgrading that country’s fighter aircraft, ground-force mobility and air and missile defense systems over the next 10 years. It is the largest such military aid package in U.S. history.