![]() ![]() Even if the claims were true, we’re the United States we’re supposed to be a moral beacon for the world, not a mercenary nation willing to abandon its principles if the money is good. “If we take a generous approach and include all jobs created in direct assembly and production of components, along with the jobs induced by the spending of wages by workers employed in assembly or component production, the $2.5bn in annual arms deliveries to Saudi Arabia would create 17,500 jobs in any given year,” Hartung wrote, pointing out that it was a tiny fraction of 1% of the 160 million US workforce.It’s not just that Trump’s claims about the number of jobs at stake - first it was 40,000, then 450,000, then 600,000, then 1 million - are lies. The report’s author, William Hartung, said it was difficult to pin a precise number of jobs to that volume of sales. All of the major sales in the pipeline were initiated by the Obama administration, which was seeking to appease Saudi Arabia to counterbalance the Iran nuclear deal. It does not represent actual signed contracts. The actual value of US arms sales to Riyadh since Trump took office is $14.5bn, the report says.Įven that figure refers to “letters of offer and acceptance” for new weaponry and support equipment, which is just one step in a longer process involved in arms transactions. ![]() Saudi block bookings have helped boost otherwise flagging revenues at Trump’s hotel in New York. There is also a personal financial motive. Saudi support is critical to the administration’s priority in the Middle East, exerting extreme pressure on Iran in the wake of Trump’s scrapping of the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. Observers of the Trump White House argue that there are other factors in play behind Trump’s staunch defence of the Saudi monarchy, and the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in particular. The report, US Military Support for Saudi Arabia and the War in Yemen, argues that Saudi Arabia needs the US far more than the other way round, and the administration is underplaying its hand, if it wants to rein in Riyadh in Yemen – or punish the monarchy for Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. According to a report by the Centre for International Policy thinktank in Washington, those figures are hugely inflated. ![]()
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