Why Trump Won't Sanction Saudi Arabia
by John Lawrence, December 6, 2018
The short answer is that he has business dealings with Saudi Arabia. The New York Times reported:
Mr. Trump’s dealings with the Saudis extend back to at least 1995, when he sold the Plaza Hotel to a partnership formed by a Saudi prince and an investor from Singapore. The deal, for $325 million, enabled Mr. Trump to escape a default on his loans. (The same prince had reportedly bought Mr. Trump’s yacht for $18 million four years earlier.)
The Saudis “buy apartments from me,” he said in August 2015 at a rally in Mobile, Ala. “They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.”
His company filed paperwork to create eight inactive corporations in Saudi Arabia around that time, presumably contemplating a hotel or licensing deal in Jidda that has not come to fruition.
So Trump doesn't want to offend countries with which he has lucrative business deals going past and present. Would this cloud his judgment when deciding what to do as President of the United States? You think? You might as well make Saudi Arabia the 51st state. They have a horrible human rights record. It's to the point where human rights don't mean anything at all. Even Republican Congressmen are convinced that Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.
Long story short: we have a corrupt President who puts his business dealings first and not the interests of the US. It used to be said that what is good for General Motors is good for the US. Now that has changed to what is good for Donald Trump is good for the US. Trump's interests come first and the US' interests are secondary. I guess it's not illegal though so Trump has a point that the Mueller investigation is a "witch hunt."
