US approves sale of precision-guided weapons to Saudi Arabia
In July, the State Department also approved a separate deal worth approximately $2.8 billion, under which the US agreed to provide Saudi Arabia with logistics systems, joint planning programs, and equipment related to American-made aircraft.
At the time, the State Department noted in a memorandum to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency that the deal would help Saudi Arabia strengthen both its current and future military capabilities. It also highlighted the support and training provided for the Royal Saudi Air Force, particularly for its existing platforms, including C-130 transport aircraft, E-3 surveillance planes, and Bell helicopters.
Saudi Arabia among the world's top military spenders
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's General Authority for Military Industries (GAMI) reported that the kingdom's military spending has grown at an annual rate of 4.5 percent since 1960, reaching $75.8 billion in 2024. This makes Saudi Arabia the fifth-largest military spender globally and the top spender in the Arab world.
The authority also stated that Saudi Arabia's defense budget for 2025 is set at $78 billion, accounting for 21 percent of total government spending and 7.1 percent of the country's GDP. The kingdom's defense expenditures represent 3.1 percent of global military spending, which stands at $2.44 trillion.
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Al Arabiya
41 minutes ago
- Al Arabiya
Small brazilian coffee producers fear for the future after trump's 50% tariff
Brazilian José Natal da Silva often tends to his modest coffee plantation in the interior of Rio de Janeiro state in the middle of the night, sacrificing sleep to fend off pests that could inflict harm on his precious crops. But anxiety has troubled his shut-eye even more in recent weeks following President Donald Trump's announcement earlier this month of a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian imported goods, which experts expect to drive down the price of coffee in Brazil. Da Silva sighed as he recounted his fears, sitting on the dry earth surrounded by his glossy green arabica coffee shrubs in the small municipality of Porciuncula. 'We're sad because we struggle so much. We spend years battling to get somewhere. And suddenly everything starts falling apart and we're going to lose everything,' da Silva said. 'How are we going to survive?' Trump's tariff on Brazil is overtly political. In his public letter detailing the reasons for the hike, the US president called the trial of his ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro, a 'witch hunt.' Bolsonaro is accused of masterminding a coup to overturn his 2022 election loss to left-leaning President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The tariff has sparked ripples of fear in Brazil, particularly among sectors with deep ties to the American market, such as beef, orange juice – and coffee. Minor coffee producers say the import tax will hit their margins and adds to the uncertainty already generated by an increasingly dry and unpredictable climate. Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, exports around 85 percent of its production. The United States is the country's top coffee buyer and represents around 16 percent of exports, according to Brazil's coffee exporters council Cecafe. The president of Cecafe's deliberative council, Márcio Ferreira, told journalists last week that he thinks the US will continue to import Brazilian coffee even with the hefty tariff. 'It's obvious that neither the United States nor any other source can give up on Brazil, even if it's tariffed,' he said. But the tariff will likely decrease Brazilian coffee's competitiveness in the US and naturally reduce demand, said Leandro Gilio, a professor of global agribusiness at Insper business school in Sao Paulo. 'There's no way we can quickly redirect our coffee production to other markets,' Gilio said. 'This principally affects small producers who have less financial power to make investments or support themselves in a period like this.' Family farmers produce more than two-thirds of Brazilian coffee. They are a majority in Rio state's northwestern region, where most of the state's coffee production lies. Coffee farming is the primary economic activity in these municipalities. In Porciuncula, which neighbors Brazil's largest coffee-producing state, Minas Gerais, gentle mountains are layered with symmetrical lines of coffee shrubs. Da Silva, who wore a straw hat for protection from the sun and a crucifix around his neck, owns around 40,000 coffee trees. He started working in the fields when he was 12. Besides coffee, he grows cassava, squash, bananas, oranges, and lemons and has a few chickens that provide fresh eggs. 'We have them because of the fear of not being able to eat. We wouldn't manage if everything were bought because the profit is very low,' he said. Last year drought – made more likely by human-caused climate change – devastated large swathes of da Silva's production. The reduction in supply pushed coffee prices up, but only after many small-scale farmers had already sold all their crops. Since peaking in February, prices of arabica have fallen, dropping 33 percent by July, according to the University of Sao Paulo's Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics, which provides renowned commodity price reports. 'When you make an investment counting on a certain price for coffee, and then when you go to sell it the price is 20-30 percent less than you calculated, it breaks the producers,' said Paulo Vitor Menezes Freitas, 31, who also owns a modest plantation of around 35,000 coffee trees in the nearby municipality of Varre-Sai. Life out in the fields is tough, according to Menezes Freitas. During harvest season, he sometimes gets up at 3 a.m. to turn on a coffee drier, going to bed as late as midnight. 'The rest of the year is less intense, but still there are few to no breaks because there's always work to do,' he said. Menezes Freitas, who is expecting his first child in October, said the tariffs announcement increased his fears for the future. 'It's scary. It feels like you're on shaky ground. If things get worse, what will we do? People will start pulling out their coffee and finding other ways to survive because they won't have the means to continue,' he said. In addition to slashing the value of his coffee beans, Menezes Freitas said the tariff will impact machinery and aluminum – goods that producers like him use every day. 'We hope this calms down. Hopefully they'll come to their senses and remove that tariff. I think it would be better for both the United States and Brazil,' he said.
Al Arabiya
41 minutes ago
- Al Arabiya
Trump's trip to scotland highlights his complex relationship with his mother's homeland
US President Donald Trump's trip to Scotland this week will be a homecoming of sorts, but he's likely to get a mixed reception. Trump has had a long and at times rocky relationship with the country where his mother grew up in a humble house on a windswept isle. He will be met by both political leaders and protesters during the visit, which begins Friday and takes in his two Scottish golf resorts. It comes two months before King Charles III is due to welcome him on a formal state visit to the UK. A daughter of Scotland, Trump's mother was born Mary Anne MacLeod in 1912 near the town of Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, one of the Outer Hebrides off Scotland's northwest coast. 'My mother was born in Scotland—Stornoway which is serious Scotland,' Trump said in 2017. She was raised in a large Scots Gaelic-speaking family and left for New York in 1930, one of thousands of people from the islands to emigrate in the hardscrabble years after World War I. MacLeod married the president's father, Fred C. Trump, the son of German immigrants, in New York in 1936. She died in August 2000 at the age of 88. Trump still has relatives on Lewis and visited in 2008, spending a few minutes in the plain gray house where his mother grew up. Trump's ties and troubles in Scotland are intertwined with golf. He first proposed building a course on a wild and beautiful stretch of the North Sea coast north of Aberdeen in 2006. The Trump International Scotland development was backed by the Scottish government, but it was fiercely opposed by some local residents and conservationists who said the stretch of coastal sand dunes was home to some of the country's rarest wildlife, including skylarks, kittiwakes, badgers, and otters. Local fisherman Michael Forbes became an international cause célèbre after he refused the Trump Organization's offer of 350,000 pounds (690,000 at the time) to sell his family's rundown farm in the center of the estate. Forbes still lives on his property, which Trump once called 'a slum' and 'a pigsty.' 'If it weren't for my mother, would I have walked away from this site? I think probably I would have yes,' Trump said in 2008 amid the planning battle over the course. 'Possibly had my mother not been born in Scotland, I probably wouldn't have started it.' The golf course was eventually approved and opened in 2012. Some of the grander aspects of the planned development, including 500 houses and a 450-room hotel, have not been realized, and the course has never made a profit. A second 18-hole course at the resort is scheduled to open this summer. It's named the MacLeod Course in honor of Trump's mother. There has been less controversy about Trump's other Scottish golf site, the long-established Turnberry resort in southwest Scotland, which he bought in 2014. He has pushed for the British Open to be held at the course for the first time since 2009. Turnberry is one of 10 courses on the rotation to host the Open, but organizers say there are logistical issues about road, rail, and accommodation infrastructure that must be resolved before it can return. Trump has had a rollercoaster relationship with Scottish and UK politicians. More than a decade ago, the Scottish government enlisted Trump as an unpaid business adviser with the GlobalScot network, a group of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and executives with a connection to Scotland. It dumped him in 2015 after he called for Muslims to be banned from the US. The remarks also prompted Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen to revoke an honorary doctorate in business administration it had awarded Trump in 2010. This week, Trump will meet left-leaning Scottish First Minister John Swinney, an erstwhile Trump critic who endorsed Kamala Harris before last year's election—a move branded 'an insult' by a spokesperson for Trump's Scottish businesses. Swinney said it's in Scotland's interest for him to meet the president. Some Scots disagree, and a major police operation is being mounted during the visit in anticipation of protests. The Stop Trump Scotland group has encouraged demonstrators to come to Aberdeen and 'show Trump exactly what we think of him in Scotland.' UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is also expected to travel to Scotland for talks with Trump. The British leader has forged a warm relationship with Trump, who said this month, 'I really like the prime minister a lot, even though he's a liberal.' They are likely to talk trade as Starmer seeks to nail down an exemption for UK steel from Trump's tariffs. There is no word on whether Trump and Starmer—not a golfer—will play a round at one of the courses.
Arab News
an hour ago
- Arab News
Small Brazilian coffee producers fear for the future after Trump's 50 percent tariff
PORCIUNCULA: Brazilian José Natal da Silva often tends to his modest coffee plantation in the interior of Rio de Janeiro state in the middle of the night, sacrificing sleep to fend off pests that could inflict harm on his precious crops. But anxiety has troubled his shut-eye even more in recent weeks, following President Donald Trump's announcement earlier this month of a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian imported goods, which experts expect to drive down the price of coffee in Brazil. Da Silva sighed as he recounted his fears, sitting on the dry earth surrounded by his glossy green arabica coffee shrubs, in the small municipality of Porciuncula. 'We're sad because we struggle so much. We spend years battling to get somewhere. And suddenly, everything starts falling apart, and we're going to lose everything,' da Silva said. 'How are we going to survive?' Tariff linked to Bolsonaro trial Trump's tariff on Brazil is overtly political. In his public letter detailing the reasons for the hike, the US president called the trial of his ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro, a ' witch hunt.' Bolsonaro is accused of masterminding a coup to overturn his 2022 election loss to left-leaning President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The tariff has sparked ripples of fear in Brazil, particularly among sectors with deep ties to the American market such as beef, orange juice — and coffee. Minor coffee producers say the import tax will hit their margins and adds to the uncertainty already generated by an increasingly dry and unpredictable climate. Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, exports around 85 percent of its production. The United States is the country's top coffee buyer and represents around 16 percent of exports, according to Brazil's coffee exporters council Cecafe. The president of Cecafe's deliberative council, Márcio Ferreira, told journalists last week that he thinks the US will continue to import Brazilian coffee, even with the hefty tariff. 'It's obvious that neither the United States nor any other source can give up on Brazil, even if it's tariffed,' he said. Tariff could hurt competitiveness of Brazilian coffee in US But the tariff will likely decrease Brazilian coffee's competitiveness in the US and naturally reduce demand, said Leandro Gilio, a professor of global agribusiness at Insper business school in Sao Paulo. 'There's no way we can quickly redirect our coffee production to other markets,' Gilio said. 'This principally affects small producers, who have less financial power to make investments or support themselves in a period like this.' Family farmers produce more than two-thirds of Brazilian coffee. They are a majority in Rio state's northwestern region, where most of the state's coffee production lies. Coffee farming is the primary economic activity in these municipalities. In Porciuncula, which neighbors Brazil's largest coffee-producing state Minas Gerais, gentle mountains are layered with symmetrical lines of coffee shrubs. Da Silva, who wore a straw hat for protection from the sun and a crucifix around his neck, owns around 40,000 coffee trees. He started working in the fields when he was 12. Besides coffee, he grows cassava, squash, bananas, oranges and lemons and has a few chickens that provide fresh eggs. 'We have them because of the fear of not being able to eat. We wouldn't manage if everything were bought, because the profit is very low,' he said. Last year, drought — made more likely by human-caused climate change — devastated large swathes of da Silva's production. The reduction in supply pushed coffee prices up, but only after many small-scale farmers had already sold all their crops. Since peaking in February, prices of arabica have fallen, dropping 33 percent by July, according to the University of Sao Paulo's Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics, which provides renowned commodity price reports. 'When you make an investment, counting on a certain price for coffee, and then when you go to sell it the price is 20-30 percent less than you calculated, it breaks the producers,' said Paulo Vitor Menezes Freitas, 31, who also owns a modest plantation of around 35,000 coffee trees in the nearby municipality of Varre-Sai. The demands of coffee farming Life out in the fields is tough, according to Menezes Freitas. During harvest season, he sometimes gets up at 3 a.m. to turn on a coffee drier, going to bed as late as midnight. The rest of the year is less intense, but still, there are few to no breaks because there's always work to do, he said. Menezes Freitas, who is expecting his first child in October, said the tariff's announcement increased his fears for the future. 'It's scary. It feels like you're on shaky ground. If things get worse, what will we do? People will start pulling out their coffee and finding other ways to survive because they won't have the means to continue,' he said. In addition to slashing the value of his coffee beans, Menezes Freitas said the tariff will impact machinery and aluminum — goods that producers like him use every day. 'We hope this calms down. Hopefully, they'll come to their senses and remove that tariff. I think it would be better for both the United States and Brazil,' he said.
