Shameless than Ever: Trump Administration Pushing $500m Arms Sale to Riyadh

Citing two unnamed sources familiar with the issue, Bloomberg reported that the State Department notified Congress on Tuesday that it was moving ahead to issue a license for the sale of precision-guided, air-to-ground munitions to Riyadh, estimated to be worth $478m.

US weapons manufacturer Raytheon Technologies Corp will be able to sell the weapons directly to the Saudis when it receives the license, Bloomberg said.

The Washington Post also reported that the weapons would be produced in the Gulf kingdom as per the terms of the deal, which has been in the works since early 2019. The agreement also includes a $97m internal security communications system, the newspaper said.

News of the proposed sale came as Trump entered the final weeks of his presidency.

The Republican leader has been a staunch supporter of Saudi Arabia, a longtime US ally, and the country’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, making strong US-Saudi relations a pillar of his administration’s Middle East policy.

Trump also personally shielded Crown Prince Mohammed, also known as MBS, from criticism about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the aggression on Yemen, among other contentious issues.

Trump vetoed a bill in Congress last year seeking to end US backing for the Saudi-led war effort.

Nader Hashemi, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver, said the planned US arms sale to Saudi Arabia is “a moral outrage”.

“This new shipment of arms only deepens American complicity with the crisis in Yemen, widely viewed to be the worst humanitarian crisis on our planet,” Hashemi told Al-Jazeera in an email Thursday.

“This new shipment of arms needs to be understood in relation to Trump’s final days in office. He is pardoning his corrupt friends and allies and absolving Blackwater guards of war crimes in Iraq, for which they were convicted in a US court of law.”

The Washington Post also reported this week that the US is weighing a request to grant MBS immunity from US federal prosecution in a case involving alleged threats made against a former top Saudi intelligence officer.