08-09-2018, 03:42 PM
1. Looking at page 17 of the Congressional Research Service report (not the hyperbole in the Vice article linked above) you see that US agreements to sell weapons worldwide DECREASED while Obama was in office. Beginning with 2008 means you are including agreements reached by the Bush admin.
Also - the existence of agreements doesn't mean that the weapons were actually transferred. Saudi Arabia has quite a wish list of weapons but doesn't necessarily have the funds to pay for them.
2. In both 2015 and 2016, the Obama administration was signaling to Riyad through cancelled arms deals that it wanted to see an end to the targeting of civilians in Yemen. This never included a total end to arms sales to SA. But the Trump administration has reversed that with promises to sell the munitions the previous admin was going to withhold (if the Saudis can pay for them) Overall Trump is increasing US worldwide weapons sales over those of the past few years.
https://www.ciponline.org/images/uploads...1%29_1.pdf
3. Although US worldwide arms sales overall decreased 10% in 2010, Obama did make a $60 billion deal with SA that was about containing Iran's nuclear weapons program. The size of this deal is an outlier. The Israelis were apparently OK with it because the stuff they buy from us is more sophisticated.
https://www.theatlantic.com/internationa...ran/63280/
Also - the existence of agreements doesn't mean that the weapons were actually transferred. Saudi Arabia has quite a wish list of weapons but doesn't necessarily have the funds to pay for them.
2. In both 2015 and 2016, the Obama administration was signaling to Riyad through cancelled arms deals that it wanted to see an end to the targeting of civilians in Yemen. This never included a total end to arms sales to SA. But the Trump administration has reversed that with promises to sell the munitions the previous admin was going to withhold (if the Saudis can pay for them) Overall Trump is increasing US worldwide weapons sales over those of the past few years.
https://www.ciponline.org/images/uploads...1%29_1.pdf
3. Although US worldwide arms sales overall decreased 10% in 2010, Obama did make a $60 billion deal with SA that was about containing Iran's nuclear weapons program. The size of this deal is an outlier. The Israelis were apparently OK with it because the stuff they buy from us is more sophisticated.
https://www.theatlantic.com/internationa...ran/63280/