A Give-Away Of Sensitive U.S. Military Technology’: Trump Vetoes Resolutions Blocking Saudi Arms Sales
by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – A series of arms sales by the Trump administration to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia were pushed through Monday, after Republicans and Democrats failed to buoy resolutions blocking the sales against vetoes from Trump.
The initial sales, part of an agreement signed by the President during his trip to the Middle East oil juggernaut in 2017, total $8.1 billion in weapons, with an overall $350 billion in arms expected to be exported to the country over the next decade.
“From the start, this administration has failed to demonstrate what kind of national security threat or quote-unquote ‘emergency’ from Iran warranted fast-tracking the sale of these weapons to Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.,” Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey objected.
A report released the same day by House Oversight Committee Democratic Chairman Elijah Cummings revealed the potential transfer of sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to the Saudi Kingdom by private investment firm IP3 as a major lobbying point of friends within the Trump administration.
Saudi Arabia is the top customer of U.S. arms in the world, with $90 billion worth of U.S. weapons having been sold to the Middle East kingdom since 1950.
Despite historic ties between American and Saudi oil interests, with American companies like Texaco, Exxon, and Mobil having grown from the soil of a joint American-Saudi oil venture in eastern Saudi Arabia in 1933, the two countries remain ideologically split, making the weapons sales questionable.
Besides fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers being Saudi citizens, and Osama Bin Laden himself being the son of the owner of Saudi Arabia’s largest construction company, the Saudi Royal court voiced its firm displeasure when the U.S. decided to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2018, making opposition to Iran and the sale of oil virtually the only shared values in the partnership between the two countries.