Donald Trump chases arms sales – whatever the human cost

The Trump administration’s decision to press ahead with a multibillion-dollar arms sale to Bahrain will dismay Shia opposition groups and international human rights campaigners critical of the Sunni-led state’s authoritarian regime.

However, the sale of 19 advanced Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jets fits an emerging pattern since Donald Trump took office in January, indicating a new US willingness to pump hi-tech weaponry into global trouble spots and fuel lucrative but destabilising regional arms races.

Barack Obama declined to approve the Bahrain deal last year amid concern over the latest crackdown on opposition leaders since the Shia uprising in 2011. Obama said Bahrain had failed to fulfil promises to improve its record, a verdict confirmed in Human Rights Watch’s latest report.

Trump’s decision reflects his priority of strengthening ties with the Sunni monarchies of the Gulf in the fight against Islamic State, and in their ongoing confrontation with Iran’s Shia theocracy.

Bahrain, which claims it faces Iranian-inspired subversion, is the home port of the US fifth fleet. Britain is building a naval base there, and has maintained arms export sales worth £45m since 2011.

In another move overriding human rights concerns, Trump is also expected to give the go-ahead soon for an expanded new arms package for Saudi Arabia. The sale, of $300m (£240m) of precision-guided munitions, was also blocked by Obama over fears the weapons would be used in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition is fighting Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

Saudi forces, backed by expanding US drone operations, have been repeatedly accused of conducting airstrikes responsible for hundreds of Yemeni civilian deaths and injuries. Some of the attacks “may amount to war crimes”, according to a UN report published in January.

Trump is not alone. Under fire over Yemen but sticking to its guns, the British government, too, has resisted pressure from parliament to curb its arms sales to Riyadh, Britain’s highest-spending client. The UN says the conflict, which will soon enter its third year, has led to the deaths of 10,000 civilians and pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.

Trump’s readiness to set aside human rights considerations while boosting arms exports may be seen again next month when Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, visits Washington. Trump, who has expressed Putinesque admiration for Sisi’s strongman style of governance, is expected to cement bilateral counter-terrorism cooperation by expanding US military support for Egypt, already worth $1.3bn annually.

More alarming, from a European standpoint, is a possible Trump move to expand arms sales and cooperation with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s autocratic leader. Unusually, Germany suspended arms sales to Turkey, a fellow Nato member, because of the egregious repression that followed last July’s failed military coup. But Trump and his advisers want Turkey’s support in defeating Isis, and as a buffer against Iran.

If Erdoğan wins next month’s referendum on expanding his presidential powers, a White House visit will be on the cards – plus increased US weapons sales – which would be bad news for Turkish and Syrian Kurds who oppose Ankara.

Trump’s emerging emphasis on military solutions and strength, as opposed to state department-style diplomacy, is already affecting other global trouble spots and conflict zones.

The president lost no time in confirming the deployment in South Korea of an advanced missile defence system. The US says the missiles are intended to deter North Korea. Beijing objects, saying the deployment upsets a delicate strategic balance already under pressure from a regional arms race involving, among others, China’s old enemy Japan.

China’s anger over the missiles will be nothing compared to its likely reaction if Trump goes ahead with another mooted arms sale – to Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a “renegade province”. The package could reportedly include rockets and anti-ship missiles specifically intended to deter Chinese incursions. “The political desire is there to do a substantial sale,” an unnamed administration official said last week.

Trump’s global arms peddling is matched at home by his pledge to increase Pentagon military spending by $54bn, a prospective bonanza for US defence manufacturers who held a 33% share of the international arms trade in 2016, worth $38bn, and who dominate the domestic market.

Similarly, it is estimated that Trump’s demand that all Nato allies increase their annual defence spending to 2% of GDP would, if met, add $100bn to Europe’s yearly military expenditure, 20% of which would go on new weapons. For Trump, more salesman than statesman, and a born-again US military-industrial complex, these glittering prizes appear irresistible, whatever the human cost.