The Donald Trump administration is worried that weapons carrying the “Made in China” label are becoming ubiquitous on Middle East battlefields, a Pentagon report revealed earlier this month.

In increasing numbers, traditional US allies are turning to Beijing for technologies that the United States is constrained from exporting as a signatory of international arms control treaties. The Pentagon is increasingly concerned that China’s growing arms sales give the country more clout to secure an economic and military foothold and relationships with US allies in a region where defense officials often control the purse strings.

"It's potentially a tool for them to develop closer defense and military ties, particularly for future access,” Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Affairs Randall Schriver told Al-Monitor at a recent Pentagon briefing. “China is less disciplined, and so there's a proliferation risk as well to regimes that we would regard as not necessarily responsible.”

The Pentagon said China rang up $10 billion in weapons sales from Middle East customers from 2013 to 2017. The country “faces little competition” for armed drone sales in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates because of US membership in a handful of weapons-control regimes.