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saudi arabia
In Bonanza for Arms Industry, Trump Announces Record $142 Billion Weapons Sale to Saudis
"I like him a lot," Trump said of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a prolific human rights violator. "I like him too much."
May 13, 2025
In what the White House described as "the largest defense sales agreement in history," U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a deal for prolific human rights violator Saudi Arabia to purchase $142 billion worth of arms from a dozen different American companies.
The White House unveiled the sale as Trump visited Saudi leaders including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the kingdom's capital city of Riyadh on the first leg of a Mideast tour, with stops also scheduled in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
A fact sheet published by the executive office said the arms sale involves "air force advancement and space capabilities, air and missile defense, maritime and coastal security, border security and land forces modernization, and information and communication systems upgrades."
"Oh, what I do for the crown prince."
Reutersreported that military-industrial complex titans including Lockheed Martin, RTX—formerly Raytheon—Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and General Atomics are involved in the deal. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia reportedly discussed the potential sale of Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets to the kingdom, but it remains unclear if the Trump administration will allow the transfer of the highly advanced warplanes.
The agreement is part of a broader Saudi commitment to invest $600 billion in the United States, which the White House said will "strengthen our energy security, defense industry, technology leadership, and access to global infrastructure and critical minerals."
Trump and his relatives, including son-in-law Jared Kushner, enjoy close personal and financial relations with the Saudi royal family, which has poured billions of dollars into their business ventures.
During a signing ceremony, Trump—who apparently fell asleep during the proceedings—joked that the Saudis should invest $1 trillion.
Business leaders including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk—who is also the de facto Department of Government Efficiency chief—OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, CitiGroup CEO Jane Fraser, and the heads of investment firms including BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and Blackstone Group also traveled to Saudi Arabia.
Critics including congressional progressives and anti-war groups have long opposed U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which stands accused of a litany of human rights violations including bombing and starving civilians in Yemen, massacring African migrants, and the 2018 murder of journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi.
In 2019, during Trump's first term, Congress passed three bipartisan bills aimed at blocking an $8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia and its coalition partner in the U.S.-backed war on Yemen, the United Arab Emirates. Trump vetoed the legislation. His successor, former President Joe Biden, paused U.S. arms transfers to Saudi Arabia and the UAE but subsequently lifted the freeze despite pleas from human rights defenders.
The record arms sale comes amid Trump's effort to broker a diplomatic normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The president is no longer demanding that the Saudis normalize relations with Israel as a precondition for a civilian nuclear cooperation deal, a move that reportedly alarmed Israel's far-right government.
Trump lavished praise on the Saudi monarchy in a rambling speech in Riyadh on Tuesday, hailing bin Salman as an "incredible man."
Trump gushes over MBS: "We have great partners in the world, but we have none stronger and nobody like the gentleman right before me. He's your greatest representative. And if I didn't like him, I'd get out of here so fast. He knows me well. I do. I like him a lot. I like him too much."
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) May 13, 2025 at 9:01 AM
"We have great partners in the world, but we have none stronger, and nobody like the gentleman that's right before me, he's your greatest representative, your greatest representative," Trump said. "And if I didn't like him, I would get out of here so fast. You know that don't you? He knows me well."
"I do, I like him a lot. I like him too much, that's why we give so much, you know?" the president continued. "Too much. I like you too much!"
"Oh, what I do for the crown prince," he added.
Trump also announced that the U.S. would lift sanctions on Syria and restore relations with the country's new government, a move the peace group CodePink called "good news."
"The bad news is he's making new arms deals with Saudi Arabia, jeopardizing diplomacy with Iran, and continuing to ignore the U.S. and Israel's genocide in Gaza as they drop bombs on hospitals," the group added.
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What’s Behind Trump’s Decision to Cease Bombing Yemen?
The U.S. president appears to be heeding Saudi wishes ahead of a visit to Riyadh, with a potential eye on negotiations with Iran as well.
May 07, 2025
Middle East Eye reports that Saudi Arabia pressured the Trump administration to cease bombing Yemen in advance of his planned trip to the Kingdom next week because such raids would be an embarrassment for him and his host. U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he was convinced that the Houthis were sincere in their new pledge to cease targeting shipping in the Red Sea.
The subtext here is that people in the region believe the U.S. is bombing an Arab country on behalf of Israeli shipping in the Red Sea and to protect Israel from repercussions for its Gaza genocide. Attacking the Houthis, who are not otherwise popular, on these grounds while Trump is in Riyadh would make it look like Saudi Arabia is also running interference for the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Houthi strategy of hitting out at Israeli interests has helped rally the people around them and lends them some regional popularity.
Both the Biden administration and the Trump administration have bombed Yemen in reaction to the Houthi targeting of Red Sea shipping and attacks on Israel in sympathy with the people of Gaza, against whom Israel has conducted serial atrocities.
MEE says that the Saudis have requested that Trump not bring up normalization with Israel on this trip, since Riyadh is determined not to recognize Israel until there is a firm prospect of a Palestinian state. Unlike the UAE and Bahrain, which did recognize Israel, Saudi Arabia has a fairly large population of citizens, most of whom would be extremely upset to see their king reward the Israelis for their Gaza atrocities by establishing diplomatic relations.
The Houthis do not appear to have made any pledge to cease targeting Israel with missiles, and the Israeli government was reportedly blindsided by the Trump move. Trump kept them out of the loop, much to their dismay. On Tuesday, Israel itself bombed Sanaa in retaliation for the Houthi missile attack Sunday on Ben Gurion Airport.
Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, confirmed the White House announcement of the cessation of hostilities. Oman has been a go-to mediator for conflicts in the region, and is helping negotiate a Trump deal with Iran.
A senior Houthi official, Politburo member Muhammad Ali al-Houthi, expressed cautious optimism, saying that the American pledge to halt bombing the small country on the southwest edge of the Arabian Peninsula would be “field tested.”
Both the Biden administration and the Trump administration have bombed Yemen in reaction to the Houthi targeting of Red Sea shipping and attacks on Israel in sympathy with the people of Gaza, against whom Israel has conducted serial atrocities. Trump alone has ordered 800 bombing raids on the desperately poor country. Yemen is the only Arab country to have reacted against the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Its methods, however, have involved war crimes, since it has attacked civilian container ships, most of them not actually connected to Israel, and has attacked civilian targets in Israel—or has been unable to control its missiles, endangering civilian life—which is a war crime.
Former National Security adviser to the Iranian parliament, Heshmetollah Felahat, said Tuesday that the cessation of U.S. bombing of Yemen was connected to U.S.-Iran negotiations and was a way for Trump to block attempts of Netanyahu to draw the U.S. into war with Iran. He said that the chances of successful U.S.-Iran negotiations just went up.
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Yemen's Health Ministry Says Majority of 53 Killed in US Strikes 'Were Women and Children'
"All because Yemen refuses to let Israelis wipe Palestine out," said one critic.
Mar 17, 2025
The Yemeni Health Ministry said Sunday that most of the more than 50 people killed in U.S. airstrikes over the weekend were women and children as the war-torn Mideast nation braced for more "overwhelming lethal force" promised by President Donald Trump in retaliation for Houthi rebel attacks on American warships, international shipping, and Israel.
Anis al-Asbahi, a spokesperson for the Yemeni Health Ministry, said that the wave of dozens of U.S. strikes across eight provinces including the capital Sanaa killed 53 people, 31 of them civilians, and wounded more than 100 others.
"The majority of them were children and women," al-Asbhahi toldDrop Site News, adding that the death toll was likely to rise, as rescue workers were still finding victims amid the rubble.
Dozens of civilians, including children and women, were killed in U.S. bombings across Yemen as Trump vows to unleash “overwhelming lethal force” to stop the Houthi naval blockade targeting Israel’s war on Gaza. Read Shuaib Almosawa's report from Yemen: www.dropsitenews.com/p/trump-mass...
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— Jeremy Scahill ( @jeremyscahill.com) March 17, 2025 at 3:53 AM
Yemeni journalist Shuaib Almosawa wrote for Drop Site News:
Scenes filmed inside Saada hospital revealed a chaotic environment, with medical staff rushing injured people, including children and women, on stretchers into hospitals and through corridors. Severely injured children were screaming, some with faces bloodied and burned. Others were covered with dust and blood, suggesting they had been pulled from the rubble. A few small victims were charred beyond recognition.
Nasser Mohammed Saad told Almosawa that he was at a friend's home in Sanaa on Saturday evening celebrating iftar when four U.S. airstrikes directly hit the house next door.
"The house that was hit belongs to a citizen who has nothing to do with anything," Saad said, calling the strikes "a savage and barbaric aggression targeting civilians."
"It only targeted the innocent, terrifying children, women, and the elderly," he added.
The weekend strikes sparked protests in Yemen on Monday, including a massive demonstration in Sanaa attended by at least hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom believe the bombings were carried out on behalf of U.S. allies Israel and Saudi Arabia. Some of the demonstrators held placards with slogans including "Death to America, Death to Israel!"
The Trump administration said the strikes were ordered after Houthi rebels—who are officially known as Ansar Allah and who control Sanaa and most of western Yemen—resumed attacking ships including U.S. naval vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The Houthis began attacking commercial and military ships in the area in response to Israel's annihilation of Gaza.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social site Saturday that he "ordered the United States Military to launch decisive and powerful Military action" against the Houthis, who "have waged an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft, and drones."
"Joe Biden's response was pathetically weak, so the unrestrained Houthis just kept going," Trump continued, referring to the series of sustained strikes carried out by his Democratic predecessor along with Britain and Israel that reportedly killed at least dozens of Houthi fighters and at least one civilian. "It has been over a year since a U.S. flagged commercial ship safely sailed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, or the Gulf of Aden."
"The Houthi attack on American vessels will not be tolerated," the president said. "We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective."
Trump also had a message for Iran, which backs the Houthis: "Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY! Do NOT threaten the American People, their President, who has received one of the largest mandates in Presidential History, or Worldwide shipping lanes. If you do, BEWARE, because America will hold you fully accountable and, we won't be nice about it!"
In response to the U.S. strikes, the Houthis said they launched a barrage of drones and missiles at the USS Harry Truman, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, in the Red Sea, and other ships in its carrier group. The U.S. military said that none of its warships were hit and that U.S. warplanes shot down all of the incoming drones.
"We affirm that this aggression will not deter the Yemeni people from continuing to support Palestine and fulfilling their religious and humanitarian duties in supporting the people of Gaza, their resistance, and their heroic fighters," Ansar Allah said in a statement.
U.S. forces have launched drone and other airstrikes against Yemen since the George W. Bush administration. There have also been occasional U.S. ground raids in the Middle Eastern country, including one in January 2017 that killed Nawar al-Awlaki, an 8-year-old American girl whose father and brother were killed in separate U.S. drone strikes during the administration of former President Barack Obama.
According to the U.K.-based monitor Airwars, U.S. forces have killed an estimated 175-300 Yemeni civilians in 181 declared actions since 2002. Overall, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have died during the civil war that began in 2014, with international experts attributing more than 150,000 Yemeni deaths to U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing and blockade.
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