Here Is What Trump Seeks From Saudi Crown Prince MBS Visit To US
During the first ever official visit by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to US, President Donald Trump discussed ways to cooperate in terms of military deals, investment in the US and security cooperation.
Trump praised the 32 year old crown prince, popularly known as MBS, for his new role he gained after the grand political shake-up a few months ago in the desert peninsula of Saudi Arabia.
“[…] the relationship, now, is probably as good as it’s really ever been, and I think will probably only get better. Tremendous investments made in our country. And that means jobs for our workers, jobs for our people,” Trump said while briefing a press conference after the meeting.
Trump displayed the charts relating to the deals to show the depth of Saudi purchases of US military hardware, which includes apart from other things, purchase of ships, missile defense, 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 stated.
Mohammed Bin Salman during the meet, hailed the history of his country’s relations with US. MBS is 39 years younger than Trump.
“We are the oldest ally of America from the Middle East,” he asserted, “with more than 80 years of alliance and big interests – politically, economically, security. The foundation of the relation is really huge and deep.”
The two leaders had already agreed on a plan for about USD200 billion worth of investments from the Saudi side into US, which includes large puchases of military equipment from US.
Bin Salman was very happy that the Tuesday’s meeting exceeded his expectations, which doubled the amount of investments between Saudi Arabia and the US.
“And, as you know, Mr. President, from day one you’ve reached this office, we’ve planned to tackle $200bn for opportunities in the next four years, but it end up with $400bn for opportunities,” MBS said.
Commenting over the meeting, Marwan Bishara, a senior political commentator said, “On the political level, the American president is trying to sell the crown prince to the American public, when Saudi Arabia’s image is really bad”.
“Certainly the crown prince is coming in to pay up at least in part his commitments to the United States in terms of commercial deals and buying arms,” he added.
The visit has got lot to do with aligning Saudi Arabia and US strategically against Iran, he noted.
A senior White House official said that the meeting was expected to discuss the Gulf crisis, with Trump urging MBS to solve the issue with Qatar very soon.
An official, speaking on condition of anonymity, informed that Trump still has hopes to hold a summit with Arab Gulf leaders in May.
The trio Gulf countries namely Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic and trade ties with their neighboring country, Qatar on June 5, 2017, accusing Qatar of lending support to “terrorism”.
Qatar rejects all the allegations as ‘unfounded and baseless’.