**TL;DR - Weapon sales agreements don't create jobs, they just maintain few production lines running. Saudi Arabia and UAE are planning to create their indigenous arms industries to create jobs for their country, not for the American citizens. These weapons are used to wage wars on Yemen, and no amount of jobs should justify the death of civilians** Former President Donald Trump justified arms sales agreements to Saudi Arabia and the UAE as a way to create American jobs and saving production lines, but this is bad rationale for arms transfers on both economic and policy grounds. Arms purchases in the Middle East no longer have an impact on U.S. jobs as they did before. This has been the case for roughly a decade because these Gulf Arab states now actually expect to use the weapons they buy. Saudi Arabia has been confronting Yemen and occupied the strategic island of Socotra in the Gulf of Aden. Because these sales are used for more than just defense purposes, these countries now want to create jobs at home. Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are currently attempting to build their own arms industries [1]. So, in the long run, these agreements with the UAE and Saudi Arabia will likely take the form of a licensed production and technology transfer, and that would directly cut into U.S. defense jobs. All those arguments made by manufacturers and defense sector officials saying that we need to think about the millions of American mouths that are fed by mothers and fathers working in the defense sector are actually harming their industry more because these jobs are unreliable and will be taken by other countries soon [1]. Even if these arms sales kept production lines running forever, an extra job does not make a sale more or less strategically or ethically compelling. After all, the bombs in these transfers are causing excessive civilian casualties in Yemen. Saudi Arabia has spent a fortune buying arms from America to prosecute a war in Yemen that has killed almost a quarter of a million people [2]. Works Cited [1] Biden Must Base Arms Sales on U.S. Interests—Not U.S. Jobs https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/25/biden-must-base-arms-sales-on-u-s-interests-not-u-s-jobs/ [2] It’s time to stop US arms sales to Saudi Arabia https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/02/04/its-time-to-stop-us-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia/