"US President Trump's recent giant military contracts with Gulf monarchies raise the risk of a new spiral in arms sales," Gabriel said.
He also criticized Trump for encouraging Saudi Arabia to isolate Qatar, which has had diplomatic links with the Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain, all of which have closed their airspace to Qatari flights.
Relations between Berlin and Washington have been bumpy since Trump became president.
In late May, Trump tweeted that the US was running a huge trade deficit with Germany, having previously complained that too many German cars were bought on the US.
We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 30 May 2017
In January, Trump told a German newspaper that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had made a "catastrophic mistake" in her 'open doors' policy towards refugees.
"I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know, taking all of the people from wherever they come from. And nobody even knows where they come from. So I think she made a catastrophic mistake, very bad mistake," Trump told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
He also hit out an NATO countries that failed to meet the target of two percent of GDP spending on defense — a key NATO target. Germany is well below the two percent level, according to the latest NATO figures, spending only 1.2 percent of GDP.
"We strongly support NATO; we only ask that all of the NATO members make their full and proper contributions to the NATO alliance, which many of them have not been doing — many of them have not been even close," Trump said.
Gabriel's comments on Qatar and the Saudi arms deal are likely to further add to tensions between Washington and Berlin.
