Bringing back the gold

Welp, the arms deal is bullshit too:

I’ve spoken to contacts in the defense business and on the Hill, and all of them say the same thing: There is no $110 billion deal. Instead, there are a bunch of letters of interest or intent, but not contracts. Many are offers that the defense industry thinks the Saudis will be interested in someday. So far nothing has been notified to the Senate for review. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the arms sales wing of the Pentagon, calls them “intended sales.” None of the deals identified so far are new, all began in the Obama administration.

The Brookings piece goes on to note that some of the weapons 'sold' don't even exist yet. Nor do they necessarily add up, even if they were to happen at some undetermined future date, to $110 billion:

Moreover, it’s unlikely that the Saudis could pay for a $110 billion deal any longer, due to low oil prices and the two-plus years old war in Yemen. President Obama sold the kingdom $112 billion in weapons over eight years, most of which was a single, huge deal in 2012 negotiated by then-Secretary of Defense Bob Gates. To get that deal through Congressional approval, Gates also negotiated a deal with Israel to compensate the Israelis and preserve their qualitative edge over their Arab neighbors. With the fall in oil prices, the Saudis have struggled to meet their payments since.

If this deal were real, that would mean the Saudis would have bought $222 Billion worth of military equipment this decade. The entire Saudi government revenue was $162 Billion in 2015 and they are making serious policy efforts to cut its almost $100 billion 2015 budget deficit. With low oil prices, and them struggling to make payments on deals that were actually signed during the Obama Administration, its pretty clear to me this whole thing was all PR, not cash.

The Times has more:

First, the arms sale deal is not final. The $110 billion figure refers to the value of defense capabilities offered to Saudi Arabia, characterized by the State Department and the Defense Security Cooperation Agency as “intended sales.” It remains to be seen how much Saudi Arabia will actually purchase. The package also includes six sales, totaling just under $24 billion, that were previously offered to the Saudis by the Obama administration. Itemized estimates of intended sales (which include missile defense systems and other military equipment potentially worth billions) are not publicly disclosed, so it’s unclear what the other $86 billion refers to. “I just don’t see how they get to $110 billion,” said William D. Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, a Washington-based think tank. He estimates that “half of that or less is real and sometime even that falls through.” That’s because the deals will have to go through a formal arms sales process before they can proceed, said Emma Ashford of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “I’m extremely skeptical of these White House claims.” If the past is any indication of the ultimate result, chances are the deal will amount to a fraction of $110 billion. President Barack Obama offered the Saudis more than $115 billion in weapons while he was in office, $57 billion of which became formal sales agreements, according Mr. Hartung’s research.

As a policy matter, I'm against selling Saudi Arabia, or any nation in the Middle East, a single bullet. Or any non-allied nation. But strictly on business merits, letters of intent are not deals. They are usually the beginning of negotiations and set the parameters and terms of the discussion, not the final deal.

So, once again, America's greatest dealmaker went overseas, touched a weird looking globe, and came back with virtually nothing. Except a bling bling necklace for himself.