In a wide-ranging speech in the Saudi capital on Tuesday, President Donald Trump sought to break with past US administrations and sell his own personal vision for regional development based on national sovereignty, private investment and personal ties between leaders.

Trump lavished praise upon Arab rulers for their countries’ accomplishments, going so far as to condemn US military intervention in the region in recent decades. But beneath the bombast, Trump’s trip has produced few if any signs of core strategy change in Washington.

Rather than abandoning the Middle East, Trump is signaling major reinvestment in the region, building on past administrations' relationships with Arab states in the Gulf as the main pillars of US strategy.

But the foundations of those pillars are shifting — largely out of necessity — from major defense sales into collaboration on tech development and artificial intelligence.

Even so, the White House touted a series of arms deals for Gulf states amid Trump’s visit. 

The White House announced Tuesday that Trump had signed a $142 billion deal for “state-of-the-art” military sales for Saudi Arabia’s armed forces, touting it as “the largest defense sales agreement in history.”

The White House readout said the deal will focus on upgrading the Saudi air force and space capabilities, air and missile defense, maritime and coastal security, border security and land forces modernization as well as information and communications upgrades.

The next day, in Doha, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani signed memos reaffirming Washington’s intent to sell Qatar nearly $2 billion in MQ-9B drones and $1 billion of Raytheon-made FS-LIDS counter-drone air defense systems.

Yet those deals are not new — and the White House's numbers don't appear to add up.

The MQ-9 deal dates back to the first Trump administration, and the State Department signed off on Raytheon’s FS-LIDS sale after Biden upgraded Qatar to major non-NATO ally back in 2022.

More than $129 billion of the announced arms sales to Saudi Arabia appear to be already accounted for in Washington’s badly backlogged Foreign Military Sales process — suggesting Trump is taking credit for sales previously signed off on by his predecessors that have yet to be completed.

If the White House’s announced numbers are accurate, they leave a massive $13 billion unaccounted for in the supposed deal for Saudi Arabia. 

Reuters reported last week that US and Saudi officials had discussed the prospect of selling F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to the kingdom, but there’s been no confirmation of any formal request. 

It’s more likely that any potential F-35 deal for Saudi Arabia remains conditioned on the kingdom’s normalization with Israel, said Grant Rumley, a former Defense Department policy official who is now a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“In an ideal world, Trump gets the Iran deal and an end to the Gaza war first so he can negotiate more Abraham Accords agreements,” Rumley told Al-Monitor. 

A spokesperson for the White House did not return Al-Monitor’s request for clarification by publication time.

Notably, the US-Qatar memorandum of understanding included a “statement of intent” listing “$38 billion in potential investments including support for burden-sharing at Al Udeid Air Base and future defense capabilities related to air defense and maritime security."

During a speech on Thursday to troops at al-Udeid — the largest US military base in the Middle East — Trump offered some clarity:

“Yesterday, we signed an agreement for Qatar to purchase $42 billion worth of the finest American military hardware including THAAD missile batteries, Pegasus refueling aircraft, Desert Viper light armored vehicles, amphibious combat vehicles, the MQ-9B … Sky Guardian drones,” the president announced.

If anything, Trump’s renewed public commitment to the $1 billion MQ-9 deal with Doha appeared to signal seriousness about breaking into the Gulf’s unmanned drone market, in which the United States has lagged behind China and Turkey for several years, largely due to Washington's adherence to a multinational agreement restricting missile exports known as the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have either received or been in talks to purchase China’s Wing Loong drones and, more recently, Turkey’s Bayraktars over the past decade.

During his first term as president, Trump loosened the US interpretation of certain elements of the MTCR pertaining to short-range weapons, including drones. President Joe Biden further relaxed the restrictions just two weeks before leaving office, greasing the wheels for future foreign sales. 

But there are even greater bureaucratic hurdles.

Last month Trump signed an executive order to “improve speed and accountability” in Washington’s labyrinthine Foreign Military Sales process. The backlog of arms sales has long frustrated Gulf leaders, who have pointed to delays as among reasons they have sought advanced weapon systems from US adversaries.

But so far there’s been little clarity from Trump administration officials as to how they intend to tackle the promised reform.

Chris Pratt, Trump’s nominee for assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, told Senate lawmakers on Thursday he had met with US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau last week to discuss streamlining the process.

But Pratt declined to publicly discuss details when pressed by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) during his confirmation hearing. 

“I would estimate a good 70% of all human interaction involves complaints about [International Traffic in Arms Regulations],” Pratt said. “I assure you I have a very clear mandate to deal with ITAR. … There is a lot of work to be done to make it more effective and more efficient.”