ANSD : Trump praises MBS over ties, arms sales

SAT 23 - 11 - 2024

Date: Mar 21, 2018
Source: The Daily Star

Trump praises MBS over ties, arms sales

WASHINGTON: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman opened a marathon tour of the U.S. Tuesday by soaking in praise from President Donald Trump, who championed close economic ties and increased military sales to the Saudis as he hosted the young heir to the throne in the Oval Office.

Trump and the crown prince looked past the two countries’ differing views about waging war in Yemen as they came together for an Oval Office meeting and working lunch. Instead, they focused on areas of easy agreement: Saudi investments in the U.S., American arm sales to the kingdom and sharp criticism of their mutual foe, Iran.

Trump offered an optimistic forecast of lucrative U.S. arms sales to the kingdom and more Saudi investment in the United States. He produced charts to show Saudi purchases of U.S. military hardware, ranging from ships to missile defense to planes and fighting vehicles.

“Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy nation and they’re going to give the United States some of that wealth, hopefully, in the form of jobs, in the form of the purchase of the finest military equipment anywhere in the world,” he told reporters.

Trump sounded an ominous note as he looked ahead to a decision in May about whether to stay in the Iran nuclear deal, loathed by both Trump and the Saudis.

“We’ll see what happens,” Trump said. “Iran has not been treating that part of the world, or the world itself, appropriately. A lot of bad things are happening in Iran.”

Prince Mohammad, also known as MBS, dodged a shouted question on the Iran deal but waxed optimistic about prospects for closer economic ties amid “new waves of opportunities in different areas.”

“The opportunities are very huge,” he said in English.

In a major Saudi shake-up last year, Prince Mohammad pushed aside his older cousin to become first in line to his father’s throne. Trump embraced the move, telling Prince Mohammad that “some tremendous things have happened” since he last visited the White House.

“Your father made a very wise decision,” Trump said.

While in Washington, the crown prince will hold separate meetings with a long roster of influential U.S. officials, including the secretaries of defense, treasury and commerce, the CIA chief and congressional leaders from both parties. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and White House envoy Jared Greenblatt, who are drafting Trump’s long-awaited Mideast peace plan, joined the crown prince for dinner Tuesday. The visit comes as the United States and much of the West are still trying to figure out Prince Mohammad, whose sweeping program of social changes at home and increased Saudi assertiveness abroad has upended decades of traditional rule in Saudi Arabia.The 32-year-old crown prince also has big economic plans, and over three weeks in the U.S. he will meet businessmen in New York, tech mavens from Google and Apple Inc. in San Francisco and entertainment bigwigs in Los Angeles. Other stops include Boston and Houston.

“This is not the real Saudi Arabia,” Prince Mohammad said recently about the repressive version of Islam many outsiders associate with the kingdom. He said he was restoring the more tolerant, egalitarian society that existed before Saudi Arabia’s ultraconservatives were empowered in 1979. He told CBS News: “We were victims, especially my generation that suffered from this a great deal.” It’s a message that has earned the crown prince admirers in the U.S., as he allowed women to drive and opened movie theaters shuttered since the 1980s. The crown prince is turning “Saudi Arabia into a normal country in which normal people lead normal lives,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters ahead of the visit.

Yet Democrats and Republicans have approached some of the crown prince’s other bold steps with trepidation in the broader Middle East, particularly in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is a key member of the Arab-led coalition fighting Houthi rebels in the country.

The Saudis are working aggressively to change perceptions. They’ve cast themselves as essential partners against Islamist extremist groups and, especially since Trump’s maiden overseas voyage last year, touted their lavish purchases of high-tech goods from job-creating American companies.

In Yemen, the kingdom says it is improving military targeting, opening up ports and pledging $1.5 billion in new aid.

“The concerns expressed there are reflective of deep concerns by the American public at large,” said Lori Plotkin Boghardt, a Gulf scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “The Saudis are very sensitive to this. They’re certainly communicating with elite circles to discuss the measures they’re taking to try to get humanitarian assistance in to Yemen.”

The crown prince could dangle a huge carrot in front of Trump for his support. Stock exchanges in New York and elsewhere are vying for the international listing of Saudi Aramco, expected to go public soon.

Readers Comments (0)

Add your comment

Enter the security code below*


Can't read this? Try Another.