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TRUMP PLEDGES F-35S TO SAUDI ARABIA IN RETURN FOR AN UNLIKELY $1
TRILLION IN INVESTMENT, ANGERING ISRAEL LOBBIES  
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Juan Cole
November 19, 2025
Informed Comment
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_ One US goal for the meeting was to induct Saudi Arabia into the
Abraham Accords, that Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and
Kazakhstan joined, recognizing Israel in return for US economic and
security pledges to throw the Palestinians under _

President Donald Trump speaks with Mohammed bin Salman, Deputy Crown
Prince of Saudi Arabia, during their meeting Tuesday, March 14, 2017,
in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., Official
White House Photo by Shealah Craighead

 

Al-Jazeera
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on the visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to the White
House.

One US goal for the meeting was to induct Saudi Arabia into the
Abraham Accords, which Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and
Kazakhstan have joined, recognizing Israel in return for US economic
and security pledges or other quid pro quos, in such a way as to throw
the Palestinians under the bus. Some believe the Abraham Accords led
to the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, the leaders of which
feared being permanently sidelined.

Bin Salman politely declined the invitation, saying he could only sign
on to the accords if a firm pathway to statehood for the Palestinians
were established. Since the Israeli government is dead set against any
Palestinian state, insisting the Palestinians remain serfs without
rights forever, Bin Salman is excusing himself from the entire affair.
He has previously expressed fears of being assassinated if he signed
the accords while the Israelis were actively genociding the
Palestinians.

Trump nevertheless proclaimed his friendship for Bin Salman and
praised him for having pledged $600 billion in Saudi investments in
the United States over four years. Bin Salman then promised to nearly
double it to $1 trillion.

Like most things in Trumpworld these investment figures are pure
fantasies, and it is disturbing that he is apparently making
geopolitical policy on this basis. After the meeting, Trump elevated
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Saudi Arabia to the status of major non-NATO ally.

Even the Gulf-funded think tank in Washington, DC, The Arab Gulf
States Institute or AGSI, found the initial $600 billion investment
commitment implausible, much less $1 trillion. Analyst Tim Callen
showed
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these astronomical sums are vast exaggerations.

Saudi Arabia typically imports about $100 billion of US goods every 4
years, or about $25 billion a year. Saudi investments in US securities
and other financial instruments could be as much as $770 billion, but
it could also be half that. It is impossible to know for sure because
many investments may be made through third parties like the Turks and
Caicos islands and other secretive banking sites. How likely is it
that these investments will rise by hundreds of billions of dollars in
4 years?

Callen wrote,

“The scale of the $600 billion commitment needs to be put in
context. The $150 billion per year average this implies is equivalent
to 14% of Saudi Arabia’s annual gross domestic product, 40% of its
annual export revenue, and just over 50% of its annual imports of
goods and services. For context, 9% of Saudi Arabia’s goods imports
so far in 2024 have come from the United States compared to 23% from
China.”

Tens of billions of arms sales are planned, of course, and the
manufacture of gpu chips for large language models (“Artificial
Intelligence”) could also result in tens of billions of investments,
with US firms such as Nvidia profiting. These investments, however,
won’t come to a trillion dollars by 2029.

Trump agreed at Tuesday’s meeting to sell F-35 stealth fighter jets
to the Kingdom. They cost as much as $109 million per plane. It is a
controversial offer, because that plane, for all its faults, is the
most advanced in the US arsenal and until now has not been offered to
any Middle Eastern countries except Israel. Several NATO countries
have bought it, as have Japan, South Korea and Australia.

Israel has a doctrine that it should always outstrip other countries
in the region in its access to the highest-tech US weaponry. For Saudi
Arabia to level the playing field by also having F-35s violates this
doctrine. Trump, however, is unfazed by the strategic calculations of
the Israelis. He seemed to put the US relationship with Saudi Arabia
on the same level as that with Israel, saying they were both friends.
No one in Tel Aviv wanted to hear that.

It reminds me of the time in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan fought the
AIPAC-oriented Congress to provide
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(Airborne Warning and Control System surveillance planes) at a time
when the Saudis were key to opposing the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan. The Israel lobbies don’t always get their way.

Some security analysts are afraid that if the Saudis get F-35s, their
close relations with China will enable Chinese intelligence to
discover its technological secrets, though since so many such analysts
in the US are close to the Israel lobbies, it is hard to know whether
their discomfort with this sale is genuinely owing to apprehensions
about China or if it derives from a desire to sink the deal lest
Israel lose its military superiority over Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis became alarmed about Israeli aggressiveness when it bombed
Qatar on September 9, 2025, and they signed a mutual security pact
with nuclear-armed Pakistan in the aftermath.

Bin Salman’s visit to Washington very much comes under the shadow of
that Israeli assault on one of the members of the Gulf Cooperation
Council (Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United
Arab Emirates), which showed that the US was not a wholly reliable
security partner — or Washington would have told Israel that no, it
can’t bomb Qatar.

The Saudi response has been twofold. One is to cozy up even more to
the United States, attempting to make security for itself also
essential to American security. The other is to diversify Riyadh’s
alliances, tightening ties with Pakistan and India.

The implausible investments Bin Salman pledged to Trump are part of
the first strategy. Even if they don’t invest $1 trillion, they will
invest many billions, and Trump likes the sound of that.

_[__JUAN COLE_ [[link removed]]_ is the
founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P.
Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is
author of, among many other books, __Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid
the Clash of Empires_
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and __The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_
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Follow him on Twitter at __@jricole_
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or the __Informed Comment Facebook Page_
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]_

* Mohammed bin Salman
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* MBS
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* Saudi Arabia
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* Donald Trump
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* F-35
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* Middle East
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* U.S. foreign policy
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* U.S. military policy
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* U.S.-Israel military aid
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* Israel
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* Palestine
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* Gaza
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* Gaza ceasefire
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* Abraham Accords
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* U.S. economy
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* U.S. high tech
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