Following a highly publicized meeting this week, President Donald Trump announced that he and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had officially signed a new Strategic Defense Agreement (SDA). The deal is notable for including the proposed sale of stealth F-35 fighter jets to the Kingdom. Alongside this, President Trump declared Saudi Arabia a major non-NATO ally (MNNA) and highlighted the country’s intention to substantially increase its investment in the US to a trillion dollars, a significant jump from the $600 million figure cited during the President’s visit to Saudi Arabia in May. However, the lack of extensive details regarding the specific implications of the SDA for Middle East security has immediately drawn scrutiny from analysts, reports Baltimore Chronicle citing ABC News.
The information released by the White House, contained in a limited fact sheet, confirmed the F-35 sale, though the exact quantity of aircraft was left undefined. The agreement also encompasses the sale of 300 US-manufactured tanks to the Kingdom, simplification of operations for American defense contractors in Saudi Arabia, and expanded collaboration in emerging fields such as civilian nuclear energy, artificial intelligence, and semiconductors.
Despite these announcements, analysts are seeking more clarity on the deal’s true significance, particularly concerning its impact on Israel’s regional security. Elizabeth Dent, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, conveyed her viewpoint to ABC News, stating that observers are “still kind of waiting to see what all this actually means,” emphasizing that the currently available information, while helpful, is “not enough.”
Dent also suggested that the SDA warrants closer inspection when viewed in the context of the executive order previously issued concerning Qatar, which provided specific security assurances to that nation. Notably, the Biden administration designated Qatar as an MNNA in 2022, enabling greater defense trade and security cooperation. Dent noted that since the agreement with Saudi Arabia appears to be an executive agreement, not requiring Senate ratification, it seems “slightly more formal than Qatar’s executive order.”
Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East and ABC News contributor, suggested that the executive order granted to Qatar—which promises the US would regard any armed attack on Qatar’s territory or critical infrastructure as a threat to US peace and security—”likely got the attention of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” Mulroy anticipates the Saudis will “likely be seeking something similar to that executive order,” but he speculates that the Trump administration may make Saudi normalization of relations with Israel a prerequisite for such a guarantee.
During his meeting with President Trump this week, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman linked any progress toward joining the Abraham Accords and normalizing ties with Israel to a two-state solution for Palestinians, a policy not supported by the current US administration.
A key challenge raised by the F-35 sale is maintaining Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge (QME), a legal requirement for US advanced weapons sales in the region. When questioned on the matter, President Trump stated that both Saudi Arabia and Israel should receive “top of the line” aircraft, adding that “Israel’s aware, and they’re going to be very happy.” Shosh Bedrosian, the spokeswoman for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, affirmed at a briefing that Israel’s QME has been maintained “yesterday, that has been true today, and the Prime Minister believes that will be true tomorrow and in the future.”
However, not all leaders share this optimism. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., a long-standing critic of Saudi Arabia’s human rights track record, voiced concerns regarding the maintenance of QME and demanded a full explanation from the Trump administration detailing “why this sale is in the vital national interest of the United States.”
Despite these concerns, some analysts view the F-35 sale as proof of how central the Trump administration considers Saudi Arabia to be as a regional partner. Dan Shapiro, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East and US ambassador to Israel, stated in a press release from the Atlantic Council that the move demonstrates Trump “is going all-in on the U.S.-Saudi relationship.” Shapiro believes the deal is likely to pass the QME review, citing the precedent set by a similar (though ultimately uncompleted) F-35 sale proposal in 2020. He also noted that “Israel will have been flying the F-35 for a decade and a half before the first Saudi plane is delivered, and Israel will have nearly seventy-five F-35s by then.”
Mulroy concluded that the primary objective of the new strategic agreement appears to be securing Saudi Arabia within America’s sphere of influence, though he stressed that this engagement should not override addressing the country’s human rights record. He reiterated that while human rights must remain integral to foreign policy, US engagement is “necessary, and the relationship between the countries is critical to both countries’ security.”
Earlier we wrote that Trump to Meet NYC Mayor-Elect Mamdani in Oval Office Amid Affordability Agenda.
