Raytheon Technologies executives told investors that it expects the US President Joe Biden administration to block at least one arms deal to a Middle Eastern ally as the US shifts its weapons export policy, Defense One reported.

Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes, speaking on the company’s quarterly earnings call, said Raytheon has removed from its books a $519 million projected sale of an “offensive weapon system” to a “customer in the Middle East...we can't talk about.”

The scale of the deal indicates that the execs were referring to the planned sale of some 7,500 Paveway bombs to Saudi Arabia. Last April, Raytheon said in a regulatory filing that its arms sales could be hurt by lawmakers’ concerns about Riyadh’s role in Yemen’s civil war and about the Saudi crown prince’s involvement in the murder of a US-based Saudi journalist. Still, in December, Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration was moving ahead with the sale.

“We had assumed that we were going to get a license to provide these offensive weapon systems to our customer,” Hayes said. “With the change in administration, it becomes less likely that we're going to be able to get a license for this. And so we appropriately decided that we could no longer support the booking of that contract.”

During his Senate confirmation hearing last week, now-confirmed Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the Biden administration would “end our support for the military campaign led by Saudi Arabia in Yemen.”

Still, Hayes said the company does not anticipate issues selling defensive weapons, like Patriot missile interceptors, and other types of arms in the region.

“Look...peace is not going to break out in the Middle East anytime soon,” Hayes said.

https://www.defenseone.com/business/2021/01/raytheon-expects-biden-block-500m-bomb-sale-saudi-arabia/171645/