Intel: How Saudi Arabia is looking past the US for arms
Just a day after Democrats took control of the US House of Representative, Saudi Arabia inked a deal Wednesday with Spanish shipbuilder Navantia to jointly build five corvettes for the Saudi navy. Riyadh has also made a $1 billion bid to partner with South African state-owned defense group Denel to grow its domestic defense industry, Reuters reported today.
The developments are the latest signs that Riyadh could look elsewhere for military equipment if Congress continues to hold up US weapons sales over the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen and the slaying of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Why it matters: The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, has been holding up sales of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates since June. Enter Spain, which has backstopped Riyadh’s bomb supplies for the Yemen conflict by greenlighting the sale of 400 of the munitions in September.
But it’s not clear that Spain can backfill all of the US weapons that Congress is holding up. A $7 billion US sale sent to Capitol Hill for approval in May would provide 120,000 laser-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
