Follow us on social

Trump Mohammed Bin Salman al Saud

Weapons industry cheers as Trump inks Saudi $142B arms deal

Riyadh lands ‘largest defense sales agreement in history’

Reporting | QiOSK

Trump has signed a record breaking foreign arms sale to Saudi Arabia — a package worth nearly $142 billion, which the Trump administration describes as "the largest defense sales agreement in history.”

The White House fact sheet on the deal states the deal will provide Saudi Arabia “with state-of-the-art warfighting equipment and services from over a dozen U.S. defense firms.” Relevant sales from the private sector will occur in the realms of air force and space advancements, air and missile defense, border and coastal security, and communications upgrades.

Signed during his trip to the Kingdom today, the deal is part of a $600 billion Saudi commercial investment package previously floated in January and is directed especially toward American infrastructure, energy, and AI.

“The United States and Saudi Arabia celebrate these and many other deals today as a result of the growing momentum of the last four months. The total package has quickly built to more than $600 billion —the largest set of commercial agreements on record between the two countries,” today’s fact sheet proclaimed.

"The U.S.-Saudi relationship has been a bedrock of security and prosperity," Mr. Trump affirmed today in Riyadh. "Today, we reaffirmed this important bond, and we take the next steps to make our relationship closer, stronger and more powerful than ever before."

But experts wonder how the agreements will shake out. “Although the Saudis allegedly agreed to the largest defense sales agreement in history, similar to the massive amounts of weapons that MBS [Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud] agreed to purchase during Trump's first term, many of these initial commitments may not actually translate into weapons purchases,” Annelle Sheline, Research Fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute, told Responsible Statecraft.

Indeed, Trump made an arms deal to Saudi Arabia worth $110 billion in 2017 during his previous presidency; in 2018, CNN reported Saudi Arabia had only followed through with about $14.5 billion worth of arms purchases.

Sources told Reuters that the U.S. and Riyadh also discussed Saudi Arabia potentially purchasing advanced F-35 jets from Lockheed Martin. Yet it wasn’t clear whether Washington would permit the purchase, as it would give Riyadh a weapon also used by Israel, which the U.S. has guaranteed more advanced American weapons over its Arab counterparts (otherwise known as the Qualitative Military Edge).

Trump’s arms sale deal was proclaimed in tandem with other major U.S. announcements, including the decision to lift sanctions on the new Syrian government. Trump also expressed hope Saudi Arabia would join the Abraham accords at Riyadh today.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, has publicly floated renaming the Persian Gulf the “Arabian Gulf,” a move likely to please the Saudis he’s making deals with — but likely to upset Iran during tense negotiations regarding its nuclear program.


U.S. President Donald Trump reacts next to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman during the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2025. REUTERS/Brian Snyder [Reuters Connect]
Reporting | QiOSK
Trump ASEAN
Top photo credit: U.S. President Donald Trump looks at Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., next to Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim when posing for a family photo with leaders at the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, October 26, 2025. Vincent Thian/Pool via REUTERS

‘America First’ meets ‘ASEAN Way’ in Kuala Lumpur

Asia-Pacific

The 2025 ASEAN and East Asia Summits in Kuala Lumpur beginning today are set to be consequential multilateral gatherings — defining not only ASEAN’s internal cohesion but also the shape of U.S.–China relations in the Indo-Pacific.

President Donald Trump’s participation will be the first by a U.S. president in an ASEAN-led summit since 2022. President Biden skipped the last two such summits in 2023 and 2024, sending then-Vice President Harris instead.

keep readingShow less
iran, china, russia
Top photo credit: Top image credit: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi shake hands as Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu looks on during their meet with reporters after their meeting at Diaoyutai State Guest House on March 14, 2025 in Beijing, China. Lintao Zhang/Pool via REUTERS

'Annulled'! Russia won't abide snapback sanctions on Iran

Middle East

“A raider attack on the U.N. Security Council.” This was the explosive accusation leveled by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov this week. His target was the U.N. Secretariat and Western powers, whom he blamed for what Russia sees as an illegitimate attempt to restore the nuclear-related international sanctions on Iran.

Beyond the fiery rhetoric, Ryabkov’s statement contained a message: Russia, he said, now considers all pre-2015 U.N. sanctions on Iran, snapped back by the European signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) — the United Kingdom, France, Germany — “annulled.” Moscow will deepen its military-technical cooperation with Tehran accordingly, according to Ryabkov.

This is more than a diplomatic spat; it is the formal announcement of a split in international legal reality. The world’s major powers are now operating under two irreconcilable interpretations of international law. On one side, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany assert that the sanctions snapback mechanism of the JCPOA was legitimately triggered for Iran’s alleged violations. On the other, Iran, Russia, and China reject this as an illegitimate procedural act.

This schism was not inevitable, and its origin reveals a profound incongruence. The Western powers that most frequently appeal to the sanctity of the "rules-based international order" and international law have, in this instance, taken an action whose effects fundamentally undermine it. By pushing through a legal maneuver that a significant part of the Security Council considers illegitimate, they have ushered the world into a new and more dangerous state. The predictable, if imperfect, framework of universally recognized Security Council decisions is being replaced by a system where legal facts are determined by political interests espoused by competing power blocs.

This rupture followed a deliberate Western choice to reject compromises in a stand-off with Iran. While Iran was in a technical violation of the provisions of the JCPOA — by, notably, amassing a stockpile of highly enriched uranium (up to 60% as opposed to the 3.67% for a civilian use permissible under the JCPOA), there was a chance to avert the crisis. In the critical weeks leading to the snapback, Iran had signaled concessions in talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Cairo, in terms of renewing cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s inspectors.

keep readingShow less
On Ukraine and Venezuela, Trump needs to dump the sycophants
Top Photo Credit: (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)

On Ukraine and Venezuela, Trump needs to dump the sycophants

Europe

While diplomats labored to produce the Dayton Accords in 1995, then-Secretary of Defense Bill Perry advised, “No agreement is better than a bad agreement.” Given that Washington’s allies in London, Paris, Berlin and Warsaw are opposed to any outcome that might end the war in Ukraine, no agreement may be preferable. But for President Trump, there is no point in equating the illusion of peace in Ukraine with a meaningless ceasefire that settles nothing.

Today, Ukraine is mired in corruption, starting at the very highest levels of the administration in Kyiv. Sending $175 billion of borrowed money there "for however long it takes" has turned out to be worse than reckless. The U.S. national sovereign debt is surging to nearly $38 trillion and rising by $425 billion with each passing month. President Trump needs to turn his attention away from funding Joe Biden’s wars and instead focus on the faltering American economy.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.