By: Azhar Azam
On his first stop to his first foreign trip in May this year, President Trump signed various defense ‘contracts’ of nearly $110 billion with his counterpart, King Salman.
The massive deals stormed all sorts of media – talk shows were shrieking, analysis were steered, editorials were published, posts were spammed, memes were shared, and trends were set – without gaging the essentials of US or global arms trade.
Pentagon press release cites the deal as defense capabilities package that will be conveyed through Foreign Military Sales (FMS). These deals are mostly letters of intent or offer based on ‘potential’ future needs of Saudi Arabia over a period of time.
Underlining the global arms trade, US arms exports, and Saudi arms imports and its economy vulnerability due to falling oil pricing; the financial value of these defense ‘agreements’ is clearly enormously overstated by Trump administration.
According to Congressional Research Service report, worldwide arms agreements, to both developed and developing countries, totaled just $79.9 billion in 2015 – up from $71.8 billion in 2014.
The noted report tables that total value of arms agreements with developing nations in 2015 was $65.2 billion – up from $61.8 billion in 2014. Whereas the total value of arms deliveries to developing nations in 2015 was $33.6 billion – up from $20.6 billion in 2014.
Similarly in 2014, Saudi Arabia ($4.2 billion) was the second largest arms importer behind India ($5.5 billion) and ahead of Iraq ($3.4 billion). United States ($12.2 billion), Russia ($9.2 billion), and France ($5.1 billion) were the largest arms suppliers to the world for the year.
Overall during 2008 to 2015, Saudi Arabia basically spent a total of just $30.7 billion in 8-years at an average of $3.8 billion per year on arms purchased against total arms purchase agreements of $93.5 billion for the same period.
In the first nine months of 2017 (January to September), the US foreign military sales (FMS) notifications totaled just $31.5 billion – despite almost doubling it $17.7 billion for the same period in last year, according to Security Assistance Monitor.
Five months into the largest defense pact, US proposed arms sales to Saudi Arabia could grow by just $2 billion – from $1.6 billion to $3.6 billion for January to September. Again, the value refers to ‘proposed sales’ and not sales concluded.
The factsheet further avers that United States would be selling more arms to Japan ($6.6 billion), Canada ($5.8 billion), Romania ($$5.2 billion), and Bahrain ($4.0) billion than the most-chanted Saudi Arabia.
And recalling that the financial realization of actual arms deliveries inevitably much lesser than the value of US arms sales notifications; the reality to bragging billions of dollars and thousands of jobs exposes blatantly.
SIPRI Arms Transfers Database is another platform that tracks and provides all transfers of major conventional weapons. The conflict and weapons transfers’ watchdog estimates that the volume of global arms trade in 2015 was $91.3 billion.
In 2016, although United States remained the star in major arms supply to world but total value of its exports stood $9.9 billion and likewise Saudi Arabia was the leading major weapons importer in the same year nonetheless it purchase value did not exceed $3.0 billion.
The multiple arms data sources sum up that the United States is highly exaggerating the $110 billion defense deals with Saudi Arabia – that also includes about $25 billion agreements signed in Obama term.
Saudi Arabia is aggressively implementing its Vision 2030 that maps to diversify its economy, easing onerous reliance on oil and focus on domestic spending including over 50% spending on domestic arms production, research, and development.
Contrariwise, the Trump administration is playing politically to rationalize his election-campaign’s promises to create and bring jobs back home – as immediately the defense stocks scaled up after the raining dollars newscasts from Saudi Arabia.
On his first stop to his first foreign trip in May this year, President Trump signed various defense ‘contracts’ of nearly $110 billion with his counterpart, King Salman.
The massive deals stormed all sorts of media – talk shows were shrieking, analysis were steered, editorials were published, posts were spammed, memes were shared, and trends were set – without gaging the essentials of US or global arms trade.
Pentagon press release cites the deal as defense capabilities package that will be conveyed through Foreign Military Sales (FMS). These deals are mostly letters of intent or offer based on ‘potential’ future needs of Saudi Arabia over a period of time.
Underlining the global arms trade, US arms exports, and Saudi arms imports and its economy vulnerability due to falling oil pricing; the financial value of these defense ‘agreements’ is clearly enormously overstated by Trump administration.
According to Congressional Research Service report, worldwide arms agreements, to both developed and developing countries, totaled just $79.9 billion in 2015 – up from $71.8 billion in 2014.
The noted report tables that total value of arms agreements with developing nations in 2015 was $65.2 billion – up from $61.8 billion in 2014. Whereas the total value of arms deliveries to developing nations in 2015 was $33.6 billion – up from $20.6 billion in 2014.
In 2015, United States’ (#1 arms exporter) total arms deliveries were $16.9 billion ahead of Russia ($7.2 billion) and France ($7.0 billion) whereas Saudi Arabia was the third-largest recipient of arms deliveries (imports) worth of $4.5 billion behind Egypt ($5.3 billion) and Iraq ($5.0 billion).
Similarly in 2014, Saudi Arabia ($4.2 billion) was the second largest arms importer behind India ($5.5 billion) and ahead of Iraq ($3.4 billion). United States ($12.2 billion), Russia ($9.2 billion), and France ($5.1 billion) were the largest arms suppliers to the world for the year.
Overall during 2008 to 2015, Saudi Arabia basically spent a total of just $30.7 billion in 8-years at an average of $3.8 billion per year on arms purchased against total arms purchase agreements of $93.5 billion for the same period.
In the first nine months of 2017 (January to September), the US foreign military sales (FMS) notifications totaled just $31.5 billion – despite almost doubling it $17.7 billion for the same period in last year, according to Security Assistance Monitor.
Five months into the largest defense pact, US proposed arms sales to Saudi Arabia could grow by just $2 billion – from $1.6 billion to $3.6 billion for January to September. Again, the value refers to ‘proposed sales’ and not sales concluded.
The factsheet further avers that United States would be selling more arms to Japan ($6.6 billion), Canada ($5.8 billion), Romania ($$5.2 billion), and Bahrain ($4.0) billion than the most-chanted Saudi Arabia.
And recalling that the financial realization of actual arms deliveries inevitably much lesser than the value of US arms sales notifications; the reality to bragging billions of dollars and thousands of jobs exposes blatantly.
SIPRI Arms Transfers Database is another platform that tracks and provides all transfers of major conventional weapons. The conflict and weapons transfers’ watchdog estimates that the volume of global arms trade in 2015 was $91.3 billion.
In 2016, although United States remained the star in major arms supply to world but total value of its exports stood $9.9 billion and likewise Saudi Arabia was the leading major weapons importer in the same year nonetheless it purchase value did not exceed $3.0 billion.
The multiple arms data sources sum up that the United States is highly exaggerating the $110 billion defense deals with Saudi Arabia – that also includes about $25 billion agreements signed in Obama term.
Saudi Arabia is aggressively implementing its Vision 2030 that maps to diversify its economy, easing onerous reliance on oil and focus on domestic spending including over 50% spending on domestic arms production, research, and development.
Contrariwise, the Trump administration is playing politically to rationalize his election-campaign’s promises to create and bring jobs back home – as immediately the defense stocks scaled up after the raining dollars newscasts from Saudi Arabia.