Donald Trump went to Saudi Arabia and he did it again: claimed credit for a YUGE deal that doesn’t exist and if it did exist, started during the Obama administration. Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has advised four presidents, writes that the $110 billion Saudi arms deal Trump keeps bragging is “a bunch of letters of interest or intent, but not contracts”:
An example is a proposal for sale of four frigates (called multi-mission surface combatant vessels) to the Royal Saudi navy. This proposal was first reported by the State Department in 2015. No contract has followed. The type of frigate is a derivative of a vessel that the U.S. Navy uses but the derivative doesn’t actually exist yet. Another piece is the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense system (THAAD) which was recently deployed in South Korea. The Saudis have expressed interest in the system for several years but no contracts have been finalized. Obama approved the sale in principle at a summit at Camp David in 2015. Also on the wish list are 150 Black Hawk helicopters. Again, this is old news repackaged. What the Saudis and the administration did is put together a notional package of the Saudi wish list of possible deals and portray that as a deal. Even then the numbers don’t add up. It’s fake news.
So Trump “sold” the Saudis a boat that doesn’t exist that they’ve been talking about buying since 2015 and still haven’t signed a contract for. That’s some salesmanship right there! To put it another way, I’ve expressed interest in flying first class to Paris and staying at the Four Seasons Hotel George V, but neither Air France nor the Four Seasons can exactly count on my business in the near future.
There are other indications this deal isn’t a deal:
Moreover, it’s unlikely that the Saudis could pay for a $110 billion deal any longer, due to low oil prices and the two-plus years old war in Yemen. President Obama sold the kingdom $112 billion in weapons over eight years, most of which was a single, huge deal in 2012 negotiated by then-Secretary of Defense Bob Gates. To get that deal through Congressional approval, Gates also negotiated a deal with Israel to compensate the Israelis and preserve their qualitative edge over their Arab neighbors. With the fall in oil prices, the Saudis have struggled to meet their payments since.
You will know the Trump deal is real when Israel begins to ask for a package to keep the Israeli Defense Forces’ qualitative edge preserved.
When Trump says he’s made a deal to save or create American jobs, always question it. Always. Either the deal will have nothing to do with him or it won’t exist. Or, as here, both.