President Trump announced on Tuesday night that he was designating Saudi Arabia as a “major non-NATO ally” of the US after he and Saudi Crown Prince Mohhamed bin Salman signed a new security pact, dubbed the US-Saudi Strategic Defense Agreement (SDA).
“I’m pleased to announce that we are taking our military cooperation to even greater heights by formally designating Saudi Arabia as a major non-NATO ally, which is something that is very important to them, and I’m just telling you know for the first time because I wanted to keep a little secret for tonight,” the president said at a dinner he hosted for MbS after the two leaders met in the Oval Office earlier in the day.
The MNNA designation gives countries priority access to US military equipment. Under the SDA, Saudi Arabia will purchase F-35 fighter jets and 300 US-made tanks, according to a statement from the White House.
The White House said that the security pact will make it easier for “US defense firms to operate in Saudi Arabia” and affirms that Riyadh “views the United States as its primary strategic partner.” It’s unclear at this point if the SDA includes any sort of mutual defense guarantee for Saudi Arabia, something Riyadh was seeking.
Saudi Arabia has also been seeking US help in establishing a civilian nuclear program, which it appears to have secured. Trump and MbS signed a deal on the conclusion of nuclear negotiations that the White House said set the “legal foundation for a decades-long, multi-billion-dollar nuclear energy partnership with the Kingdom” and “confirms that the United States and American companies will be the Kingdom’s civil nuclear cooperation partners of choice.”
MbS also pledged more Saudi investments in the US and said that he wants to join the “Abraham Accords,” referring to the Arab-Israeli normalization deal, but that it hinges on the creation of a Palestinian state, something the Israeli government has repeatedly rejected.
“We want to be part of the Abraham Accords, but we want also to be sure that we secure a clear path to a two-state solution,” MbS told reporters. “We had a healthy discussion with Mr. President that we’re going to work on that to be sure that we can prepare the right situation as soon as possible.”
Trump stirred controversy during his meeting with MbS by downplaying the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a US resident and Washington Post columnist who was brutally killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2018. The CIA concluded that year that the murder was ordered by MbS himself.
When asked about the murder, Trump told reporters that a lot of people “didn’t like” Khashoggi and claimed MbS “knew nothing about it.”
Trump has received little criticism over the fact that he’s planning to arm a country with F-35s that’s known for brutal airstrikes against civilians in Yemen, which the US supported. In August 2018, about two months before Khashoggi was murdered, the US-backed Saudi coalition bombed a school bus in Yemen, killing 40 children.
President Trump conducted his own brutal bombing campaign in Yemen this year, killing more than 250 civilians in heavy missile strikes that were launched from March 15 to May 6.
