President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday night that he will give Saudi Arabia the major non-NATO ally designation, which comes with benefits in defense trade and security cooperation.
“A stronger and more capable alliance will advance the interests of both countries, and it will serve the highest interests of peace,” Trump said during Tuesday’s pseudo-state dinner with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia.
Any U.S.-designated MNNA is eligible for loans of material, supplies, or equipment, is eligible to host U.S.-owned military stockpiles outside of U.S. military facilities, can enter into agreements with the United States for bilateral or multilateral trainings under certain conditions, and more.
They can also enter into Memoranda of Understanding or other agreements with the Pentagon for cooperative research and development on defense equipment and munitions, and they are eligible to produce explosives detection devices and other counterterrorism research developments.
Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Morocco, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, South Korea, Thailand, and Tunisia are all major non-NATO allies of the U.S., and Taiwan is treated as one without designation.
Notably, the designation does not include any security commitments from the U.S.
The Trump administration went to significant lengths to welcome Salman to the White House on Tuesday, which included not only a band and horses, but also a military flyover of three F-35 and three F-15 airplanes, as well as the pseudo-state dinner.
In addition to elevating Saudi Arabia to MNNA status, the two countries signed a Strategic Defense Agreement that includes the U.S. agreeing to sell the country F-35 fighter aircraft and 300 American tanks over time.
The president’s decision to sell the most advanced fighter jets to Saudi Arabia raised concerns among defense experts that China, Saudi Arabia’s biggest trading partner, could gain sensitive intelligence about them.
Trump has said he wants to see Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords, the landmark Israeli normalization efforts that he began during his first term. Kazakhstan became the first country to join the agreement during Trump’s second term earlier this month.
Salman has said his country would not join the accords unless the U.S. formalizes a clear pathway for Palestinian statehood.
Trump has prioritized his relationships with leaders of Arab Gulf countries during the first year of his presidency, Salman included. The first foreign trip of his second term occurred in May, when he traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
“Of all the countries in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is the most important to him,” Aaron David Miller, a longtime former State Department official who focused on the Middle East, told the Washington Examiner. “And if you needed a data point to back that up, think about where an American president in Trump 1.0 took his first foreign trip.”
TRUMP ROLLS OUT ‘RED CARPET’ FOR SAUDI CROWN PRINCE’S TRIP TO WHITE HOUSE
“American presidents go to Britain, they go to Canada, they go to Mexico, they don’t go to Saudi Arabia,” Miller, who is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, added. “The Gulf and Saudi are Donald Trump’s vision of the Middle East, authoritarian leaders who don’t have democratic constraints, with whom he’s comfortable, extraordinary amounts of money to be made.”
In September, after Israel attacked Qatar, the president signed an executive order giving Doha an explicit security guarantee in the event of an “external attack.”
