US defence cooperation in the Gulf since Trump’s return

IISS | Albert Vidal Ribe

United States Foreign Military Sales approvals to Arab Gulf partners exceeded $104 billion under President Donald Trump’s second term by September 2026, marking a ninefold acceleration compared to the previous administration. Emergency executive actions and escalating warfare with Iran drove $80 billion of these approvals between March and September 2026.

This sudden surge reflects structural export control reforms combined with upgraded bilateral security frameworks, including Saudi Arabia’s Major Non-NATO Ally designation. American defence contractors are rapidly expanding localized production initiatives. Joint ventures such as Anduril and EDGE Group now co-produce autonomous platforms including the Omen UAV in the United Arab Emirates. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s SR2 Vector joint venture is constructing a factory near Riyadh for strike drones with a 1,500-kilometre range. Speed remains a central friction point. Persistent workforce deficits and complex offset obligations within Gulf defense industries delay hardware integration, even as EDGE Group eyes strategic investments inside European and American defense sectors.

Comment

Establishing high-technology assembly lines in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh creates acute operational bottlenecks despite rapid Foreign Military Sales approvals. Co-production arrangements like the EDGE Group and Anduril partnership for the Omen UAV force prime contractors to absorb severe component delays due to missing tier-two and tier-three regional suppliers. Without established indigenous microelectronics, local assembly of the Coyote interceptor remains dependent on imported sub-assemblies controlled by Raytheon.

Consequently, prime contractors accumulate substantial unfulfilled offset credits, driving structural realignments in Saudi Arabian and Emirati procurement frameworks. Assistant Minister Khalid Al Biyari’s administrative centralisation in Riyadh reflects a growing necessity to absorb these accrued liabilities through indirect investments rather than hardware manufacturing. This administrative pivot preserves Foreign Military Sales flow while redirecting capital into non-defence infrastructure and localized research hubs like Khalifa University.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If joint ventures like EDGE Group and Anduril continue to co-produce platforms like the Omen UAV without an underlying tier-two supply chain in the Gulf, will prime contractors default to non-defence offsets, or can state-backed research hubs like Khalifa University bridge the technical deficit?

The pattern suggests that institutional research partnerships will prove insufficient to resolve immediate manufacturing gaps without decades of broader industrial maturation. In the interim, prime contractors are likely to lean heavily on indirect and non-defence offset exemptions to manage mounting liabilities. This trajectory indicates that while headline co-production deals like the Omen UAV offer high political visibility, practical assembly will remain anchored to imported sub-components.

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