President Donald Trump used a digital address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to proclaim a new purchase of$ 600 billion over the next four years from Saudi Arabia.
His notes come one day after Trump held his first foreign call as president with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, where the two leaders discussed efforts to bring balance to the Middle East, boost regional security, and fight violence, according to a White House display of the phone.
“It’s also reported today in the papers that Saudi Arabia will be investing at least$ 600 billion in America, ” Trump said on Thursday during a virtual appearance at the elite gathering of world leaders. “ But I’ll be asking the Crown Prince, who’s a fantastic guy, to round it out to around$ 1 trillion. I think they’ll do that because we’ve been pretty nice to them. ”
The president next added he had beg Saudi Arabia and OPEC to “bring down the cost of fuel. ”
The newly-inaugurated Trump said he had a “mandate” from the American government to enact his perception, chief among them bringing down great food and gas costs and ending international crises.
“If the rate came along, the Russia–Ukraine war would end soon, ” Trump said. “Right today, the price is high enough that that war will continue. You got to bring down the fuel cost. ”
Trump’s talk of his marriage with Saudi Arabia prompted Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman to eventually talk, “I’m convinced the king prince of Saudi Arabia will be very happy you gave this speech today. ”
Unlike his predecessor President Joe Biden, whose first call as president in 2021 was to northern neighbor Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump is using his second term to build on his efforts in the Middle East from his first term as president.
In May 2017, Trump visited Saudi Arabia on his first foreign trip, where Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud greeted Trump and first lady Melania Trump, in an attempt to repair relations between the two nations. Trump also views the Abraham Accords, a landmark agreement between Israel, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain normalizing diplomatic relations, as one of his biggest accomplishments during his first term.
One of Trump’s first phone calls after being sworn into office in January 2017 was to his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
Similarly, former President Barack Obama‘s first calls as president in 2009 were to Middle Eastern leaders, including then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Jordan’s King Abdullah, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Saudi Crown Prince has faced criticisms over the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. U. S. intelligence reports implicated the prince’s approval, which led to the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident.
Trump’s son-in-law and former adviser, Jared Kushner, was forced to defend his business dealings with the crown prince after leaving the White House.
There is also some evidence that Saudi Arabia may have helped the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist hijackers.
However, as Trump seeks to make his mark on the domestic and global front, he appears willing to work with the crown prince as long as it will benefit the nation and help end foreign conflicts.
At Davos, Trump also chastised NATO and the European Union and pressured businesses to invest in the U. S. or risk tariffs being imposed upon them.
“ From the standpoint of America, the EU treats us very, very unfairly, very badly, ” Trump said, lamenting the EU’s tariffs. “They have a large tax that we know about and a bad tax, and it ’s a very substantial one … essentially, [they ] don’t take our farm products, and they don’t take our cars. Yet, they send cars to us by the millions. They put tariffs on things that we want to do. ”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“I’m also going to ask all NATO nations to increase defense spending to 5 % of GDP, which is what it should have been years ago, ” Trump said about the global alliance. “It was only at 2 %, and most nations did n’t pay until I came along. ”
“If you don’t make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then very simply, you will have to pay a tariff, differing amounts, but a tariff which will direct hundreds of billions of dollars, and even trillions of dollars into our treasury to strengthen our economy and pay down debt, ” Trump also warned.
