JOIN USUS President Biden team considering a halt to 'offensive' arms sales for Saudis
President Joe Biden's administration is considering the cancellation of arms deals with Saudi Arabia that pose human rights concerns while limiting future military sales to "defensive" weapons, as it reassesses it relationship with the kingdom.
Four sources familiar with the administration's thinking said that after pausing half a billion dollars in arms deals with Saudi Arabia out of concern over casualties in Yemen earlier this year, officials are assessing the equipment and training included in recent sales to determine what can be considered defensive. Those deals would be allowed.
A State Department spokesperson said, "Our focus is on ending the conflict in Yemen even as we ensure Saudi Arabia has everything it needs to defend its territory and its people," adding Biden has pledged to end US military support for the military campaign against the Houthis.
The Biden administration is recalibrating its relationship with Saudi Arabia, a country with which it has severe human rights concerns but which is also one of Washington's closest U.S. allies in countering the threat posed by Iran.
"They're trying to figure out where do you draw the lines between offensive weapons and defensive stuff," said one congressional aide familiar with the issue, describing the process.
The Biden administration is expected as soon as Friday to release a sensitive U.S. intelligence report on the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. resident who wrote for The Washington Post.
The report finds that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country's de factor ruler, approved the killing, US officials said.
Sales of products deemed defensive - like Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile defense systems made by Lockheed Martin or Patriot missile defense systems made by Lockheed and Raytheon - would still be allowed under such the new policy.
But it would end big-ticket deals -- for products such as precision-guided munitions (PGM) and small-diameter bombs -- like those brokered under former President Donald Trump in the face of strong objections from members of Congress.
After he lost the Nov. 3 presidential election, Trump's State Department kept approving weapons sales that could be considered offensive.
It cleared the sale of Boeing Co GBU-39 small diameter bombs worth some $290 million to Saudi Arabia. The Trump administration also gave its blessing to the sale to Riyadh of 7500 Raytheon PGMs for nearly $480 million.
The weapons review also affects $23 billion of deals with the United Arab Emirates, another country that has been an important US partner.