Saudi Arabia is manufacturing its own ballistic missiles with China's help, U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed.
CNN, based on three sources, reported Thursday that Saudi Arabia previously purchased ballistic missiles from China but was not known to have built its own until now.
Satellite images obtained by CNN indicate Saudi Arabia is manufacturing the weapons in at least one location previously constructed with Chinese assistance, according to experts.
The development could affect the Biden administration’s efforts to restrain the nuclear ambitions of Iran, Saudi Arabia’s top rival in the Middle East.
The U.S. and its partners are discussing time frames for nuclear diplomacy with Iran, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Wednesday, adding that current talks with Tehran may be exhausted within weeks.
Sullivan on Friday said that efforts to get Iran to revisit the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), suspended under the Trump administration in 2018, were ''not going well,'' according to Fox News.
It's unlikely Iran will agree to stop manufacturing ballistic missiles if Saudi Arabia has begun making its own, according to Ankit Panda, a nuclear policy and weapons expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "A robust Saudi missile program would introduce new challenges to constraining other missile programs in the region," Panda told CNN.
Jeffrey Lewis, a weapons expert and professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, agreed.
"While significant attention has been focused on Iran's large ballistic missile program, Saudi Arabia's development and now production of ballistic missiles has not received the same level of scrutiny," Lewis told CNN.
"The domestic production of ballistic missiles by Saudi Arabia suggests that any diplomatic effort to control missile proliferation would need to involve other regional actors, like Saudi Arabia and Israel, that produce their own ballistic missiles."
CNN asked Chinese officials whether there had been any recent transfers of sensitive ballistic missile technology between China and Saudi Arabia.
A spokesperson for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the network in a statement that the two countries are "comprehensive strategic partners" and "have maintained friendly cooperation in all fields, including in the field of military trade."
"Such cooperation does not violate any international law and does not involve the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," the statement said.
The Biden administration is preparing to sanction some organizations involved in the transfers, sources told CNN.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.