Verification of the facts: How many jobs created by the US defense with Saudi Arabia?

World outrage for the Death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the hands of an alleged Saudi Arabian group put pressure on US companies to justify their trade relations with the kingdom. President Donald Trump apparently has less scruples, recently defending the country trade links – especially when it comes to providing weapons to Saudi Arabia – claiming that this relationship creates many jobs in the United States.

But how many jobs? Mr Trump said at an event last week that agreements between US defense contractors and Saudi Arabia created 600,000 jobs in the United States. We tried to check if this number was correct.

Different day, different figures

As the Washington Post points out, part of the problem with the assessment of Trump's claim about the alleged job gains of US companies doing business in Saudi Arabia is that these numbers continue to rise. to grow.

In 2017, the White House announced in a statement that the defense agreements concluded by the United States with Saudi Arabia presented "opportunities for US companies in the region, potentially supporting tens of thousands of new jobs in the USA".

Last week, however, Mr. Trump told Fox Business News that US defense contracts with Saudi Arabia were worth $ 110 billion according to the White House, accounting for half a million dollars. American jobs. Specifically, he said: "Once again, senators and congressmen said," Well, you know, sir, I think what we should do is we should not not follow that order. "I said," Who are we suffering? That's 500,000 jobs. "

A few days later, however, Mr Trump told a roundtable to the press that the cancellation of contracts would mean the abandonment of a million jobs, according to the post office.

Less than 400,000 jobs in the defense sector

A report from the Aerospace Industries Association revealed that in 2016, the US defense and national security sector generated sales of $ 146.7 billion and created 355,500 jobs. At the same time, a tally of the top five US defense contractors shows that companies employ fewer than 400,000 people worldwide.

Boeing says on its website that its defense division employs about 32,000 people. The entire company, which includes commercial aircraft, employed 140,800 people last year, according to a document filed with the SEC.

Raytheon employs approximately 64,000 people worldwide, according to a document filed in 2017. Northrop Grumman employs approximately 70,000 people. General Dynamics, which also owns the Gulfstream private aircraft builder, lists close to 97,000 employees in a filing filed in 2017. And Lockheed Martin reports about 100,000 employees.

As a result, it is difficult to reconcile the real number of jobs in the United States backed by Saudi contracts with the more expansive figure of Mr. Trump.

– Associated Press contributed to this report.