The Trump administration staged a warm welcome for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and the Saudis are pleased by the president’s choice for his third national security adviser, John Bolton. But behind the warm words and photo ops, there were few substantive accomplishments, and criticism of the prince and the kingdom outside the administration is growing.
Trump, while hosting the prince March 20, held up posters showing prospective US arms sales to the kingdom. The president spoke of how rich the Saudis are but complained that they weren’t spending enough on American weapons, implicitly admitting that the $110 billion arms sale he trumpeted in May 2017 in Riyadh was oversold. The prince looked uncomfortable as the president said Saudi purchases since the summit had been “peanuts” and as the president held up the boards to show the deals he wanted.
The Saudis are buying more munitions from the United States for the air war in Yemen, but Mohammed's biggest weapons deal so far is a $7 billion one to buy 48 Eurofighter Typhoons from the United Kingdom. Typhoons are built by a consortium of British and European companies.
The Saudis do have a huge defense budget. The International Institute for Strategic Studies’ annual report on military issues for 2017 says Saudi Arabia had the third-largest defense budget in the world behind only the United States and China. With their defense budget of almost $77 billion, the Saudis are by far the highest per capita military spenders in the world. But the return on the investment is a war in Yemen, an expensive quagmire with no end in sight.
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