Following the media debate on the recent talk by US President Donald Trump about the financial burdens of the strategic partnership between his country and Saudi Arabia, the remarks of His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, Crown Prince of the Kingdom, published by Bloomberg, were effective. The media hostile to the Kingdom had no answer to his statements which are what you would expect from Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Arab and Islamic worlds. The prince was also aware of the current historical moment and had a deep understanding of the historic alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United States.
In his interview with Bloomberg, the crown prince said that Saudi Arabia’s security is not free. “We believe that all the armaments we have from the Untied States of America are paid for, it’s not free armament. So ever since the relationship started between Saudi Arabia and the United States of America, we’ve bought everything with money.” The prince added that “Two years ago, we had a strategy to shift most of our armament to other countries, but when President Trump became president, we’ve changed our armament strategy again for the next 10 years to put more than 60 percent with the United States of America. That’s why we’ve created the $400 billion in opportunities, armaments and investment opportunities, and other trade opportunities. So this is a good achievement for President Trump, for Saudi Arabia.” “T his is the language President Trump speaks, being a businessman and economist..
Yes, the Kingdom pumped huge sums into the American economy and provided thousands of jobs that President Trump prided himself on after returning from his historic visit to Saudi Arabia. That no one is doing favours to anyone was the point that the crown prince made clear.
Another very important point was the increasing oil supply. MBS rightly spoke when he said “Yes, actually the request that America made to Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries is to be sure that if there is any loss of supply from Iran, that we will supply that. And that happened. Because recently, Iran reduced their exports by 700,000 barrels a day, if I’m not mistaken.” “Saudi Arabia and OPEC and non-OPEC countries, they’ve produced 1.5 million barrels a day. So we export as much as 2 barrels for any barrel that disappeared from Iran recently. So we did our job and more. We believe the higher price that we have in the last month, it’s not because of Iran. It’s mostly because of things happening in Canada, and Mexico, Libya, Venezuela and other countries that the price went a little bit higher. But Iran, definitely no. Because they reduced 700,000 barrels and we’ve exported more than 1.5 million barrels a day.”
The Saudi leadership knows well the limits of their historical role and responsibility towards the people and the nation and the prince’s comments reflected that. Sure the United States will read between the lines well and will realize that this is a new Saudi leadership that views dialogue and rationality as the main drivers of the management of Saudi-American relations during the current stage.
The current Saudi leadership is dealing with the world with a different mindset and approach. It has the courage to talk about everything, unambiguously. The leadership spoke transparently, leaving the hostile yellow media no room for interpretation, especially on the issue of Khafji and Wafra oil fields on Saudi-Kuweit neutral zone. According to MBS, “it is part of the sovereignty issues that are stuck, unsolved, between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for the past 50 years. (…) So we’re trying to have an agreement with the Kuwaitis to continue to produce for the next five to 10 years and at the same time, we work on the sovereignty issues.”
“Now we’re working with the Kuwaitis. We believe we can have something soon.”
His Highness also spoke about the detainees in Ritz hotel, saying that “there are only 8 people left [in detention],” although the media says otherwise. MBS stated that “[The detainees] have connections with agencies of other countries. They have a network, connection with government people, leaking information for the sake of these other governments,” confirming they were talking to intelligence agents. “We have some of them with videos. We can show it to you.” The security of the Kingdom must be preserved no matter what the cost. The prince said Iran and Qatar recruited some of the detainees as part of an intelligence operation against the Kingdom.
The crown prince’s statements came at the right time. They were not unusual from the new Saudi leadership with its effective approach to internal and external issues in the Gulf, Arab and Islamic regions.
