President Trump’s announcement of a massive arms deal with Saudi Arabia is not exactly unprecedented. Indeed, the $142 billion dollar agreement that the White House is calling “the largest defense cooperation agreement in U.S. history” reads much like a sequel to an episode from President Trump’s first term, when he announced another nine-figure weapons package with Riyadh. With eight years of hindsight, lessons from Trump’s 2017 arms deal with Saudi Arabia offer some context to the current arrangement. If history is any guide, the scale of the most recently announced package is likely to be much more modest than the $142 billion sticker price suggests.
When President Trump signed the 2017 defense deal with Saudi Arabia, the White House claimed it would amount to an astounding $110 billon in “defense equipment and services.” To put that figure into context, it would have amounted to 66.7% more than the $66 billion in defense support the United States has provided to Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion, and 58.5% more than total Saudi defense spending in the year of Trump’s 2017 visit.
Almost immediately, the $110 billion figure was viewed with skepticism. A deeper look revealed that the number reflected a generous collection of past and prospective deals, with very little representing binding commitments. A number of the packages included in the deal had been either provisionally approved or under consideration during the Obama administration, including a number of frigates, air defense systems, and helicopters. The deal also reflected high-end estimations for packages that Riyadh might be interested in at some point in the future, but were not immediately in the works.
Whatever the deal may have said on paper, by the numbers, U.S. arms transfers to Saudi Arabia since 2017 have been notably less than the promised total. Notifications of foreign military sales – government-to-government arms deals – between 2017 and 2025 have amounted to $34.6 billion – still a significant total, but far less than Trump originally announced. This total also represents a high-end estimation at an intermediary stage in the arms transfer process, whereby the completion of a congressional review period allows sales to proceed to a letter of offer and acceptance. Indeed, the State Department notes that since the 2017 deal, completed foreign military sale transactions totaled approximately $30 billion. And between FY2017 and FY2024, authorized direct commercial sales (DCS) – arms sales negotiated between a U.S. commercial actor and a foreign recipient – amounted to $12.9 billion. These DCS figures also do not necessarily represent completed deals but rather reflect a value ceiling for these transactions.
Given the experience of President Trump’s first Saudi arms deal, the $142 billion dollar agreement is more likely an optimistic expression of long-term ambition than a concrete financial commitment. Nevertheless, by any measure, the tens of billions in arms sales that have occurred since President Trump’s first term still reflect an objectively significant security cooperation relationship and have made Saudi Arabia one of the largest – if not the largest – customer for U.S. defense articles and services in the world.
Beyond the dollar figures, whether these arms transfers have meaningfully translated into a commensurate improvement in Saudi Arabia’s military performance remains an open question. Indeed, despite ranking among the world’s largest defense spenders, the combat effectiveness of the Saudi military as judged by its multi-year campaign in Yemen, suggests that its lavish spending has not yielded the intended results.
Moreover, the huge sums the Kingdom is spending on defense, including foreign military acquisition, are placing significant burdens on an already strained budget. Indeed, some have argued that such excessive military outlays are jeopardizing other strategic priorities, including Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s Vision 2030 (an ambitious and holistic national economic and social modernization initiative). Massive arms acquisition would only add a budgetary dilemma –$142 billion would represent 176% of the entire Saudi defense budget in 2024, suggesting that, even under the best of circumstances, such outlays would have to be spread over many years.
Whatever the final tally may be, the Trump administration’s eagerness to tout the dollar figure of its defense deal with Saudi Arabia reflects the President’s unique focus on the commercial aspects of U.S. arms transfers and his interest in the economic aspects of U.S. security cooperation. Such an approach represents a departure from historical practice, which more commonly treated security cooperation as a subservient instrument of U.S. foreign policy, meant to advance higher-level strategic and national security objectives. Nevertheless, even in economic and commercial terms, as the President’s first Saudi defense pact illustrates, the net result of the “largest arms deal in history” may be much less than originally promised.
The “Largest Defense Cooperation Agreement in U.S. History” May Not Add Up to Expectations
By Elias Yousif
Conventional Arms
President Trump’s announcement of a massive arms deal with Saudi Arabia is not exactly unprecedented. Indeed, the $142 billion dollar agreement that the White House is calling “the largest defense cooperation agreement in U.S. history” reads much like a sequel to an episode from President Trump’s first term, when he announced another nine-figure weapons package with Riyadh. With eight years of hindsight, lessons from Trump’s 2017 arms deal with Saudi Arabia offer some context to the current arrangement. If history is any guide, the scale of the most recently announced package is likely to be much more modest than the $142 billion sticker price suggests.
When President Trump signed the 2017 defense deal with Saudi Arabia, the White House claimed it would amount to an astounding $110 billon in “defense equipment and services.” To put that figure into context, it would have amounted to 66.7% more than the $66 billion in defense support the United States has provided to Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion, and 58.5% more than total Saudi defense spending in the year of Trump’s 2017 visit.
Almost immediately, the $110 billion figure was viewed with skepticism. A deeper look revealed that the number reflected a generous collection of past and prospective deals, with very little representing binding commitments. A number of the packages included in the deal had been either provisionally approved or under consideration during the Obama administration, including a number of frigates, air defense systems, and helicopters. The deal also reflected high-end estimations for packages that Riyadh might be interested in at some point in the future, but were not immediately in the works.
Whatever the deal may have said on paper, by the numbers, U.S. arms transfers to Saudi Arabia since 2017 have been notably less than the promised total. Notifications of foreign military sales – government-to-government arms deals – between 2017 and 2025 have amounted to $34.6 billion – still a significant total, but far less than Trump originally announced. This total also represents a high-end estimation at an intermediary stage in the arms transfer process, whereby the completion of a congressional review period allows sales to proceed to a letter of offer and acceptance. Indeed, the State Department notes that since the 2017 deal, completed foreign military sale transactions totaled approximately $30 billion. And between FY2017 and FY2024, authorized direct commercial sales (DCS) – arms sales negotiated between a U.S. commercial actor and a foreign recipient – amounted to $12.9 billion. These DCS figures also do not necessarily represent completed deals but rather reflect a value ceiling for these transactions.
Given the experience of President Trump’s first Saudi arms deal, the $142 billion dollar agreement is more likely an optimistic expression of long-term ambition than a concrete financial commitment. Nevertheless, by any measure, the tens of billions in arms sales that have occurred since President Trump’s first term still reflect an objectively significant security cooperation relationship and have made Saudi Arabia one of the largest – if not the largest – customer for U.S. defense articles and services in the world.
Beyond the dollar figures, whether these arms transfers have meaningfully translated into a commensurate improvement in Saudi Arabia’s military performance remains an open question. Indeed, despite ranking among the world’s largest defense spenders, the combat effectiveness of the Saudi military as judged by its multi-year campaign in Yemen, suggests that its lavish spending has not yielded the intended results.
Moreover, the huge sums the Kingdom is spending on defense, including foreign military acquisition, are placing significant burdens on an already strained budget. Indeed, some have argued that such excessive military outlays are jeopardizing other strategic priorities, including Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s Vision 2030 (an ambitious and holistic national economic and social modernization initiative). Massive arms acquisition would only add a budgetary dilemma –$142 billion would represent 176% of the entire Saudi defense budget in 2024, suggesting that, even under the best of circumstances, such outlays would have to be spread over many years.
Whatever the final tally may be, the Trump administration’s eagerness to tout the dollar figure of its defense deal with Saudi Arabia reflects the President’s unique focus on the commercial aspects of U.S. arms transfers and his interest in the economic aspects of U.S. security cooperation. Such an approach represents a departure from historical practice, which more commonly treated security cooperation as a subservient instrument of U.S. foreign policy, meant to advance higher-level strategic and national security objectives. Nevertheless, even in economic and commercial terms, as the President’s first Saudi defense pact illustrates, the net result of the “largest arms deal in history” may be much less than originally promised.
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