US President Donald Trump’s boastful claims about how huge US defense sales to Saudi Arabia is boosting American jobs, during his meeting with visiting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday, have come under severe criticism from peace groups, activists and some US lawmakers who asserted that those very weapons are being used in the brutal killing of thousands of innocent people in Yemen.
"It's an honor to have the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia with us and his representatives. Many of whom I know and I met in May when we were over there where a promise of 400 billion [US] dollars was made by Saudi Arabia for the purchase of our equipment and other things," said Trump.
Receiving the Saudi Crown Prince in White House on Tuesday, the US President displayed several presentation charts to demonstrate the strong ties between the nations. One chart was headlined “12.5 BILLION IN FINALIZED SALES TO SAUDI ARABIA” with photos of military equipment detailing the latest Saudi purchases of US military equipment including fighter jets, missiles, tanks and frigates.
"Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy nation and they are 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," Trump said.
US President Donald Trump (2nd R) holds a chart displaying military sales during a meeting with Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's crown prince (2nd L) in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 20, 2018. /VCG Photo
Agreeing with US President’s remarks, Mohammed said that Saudi-US ties had created “more than four million jobs in the United States of America, directly and indirectly,” as well as jobs in Saudi Arabia. He described the bilateral relationship as “really huge and really deep”.
"I do believe that the opportunities, it's really huge. And we are trying also to tackle new opportunities and to prepare the visit of His Majesty as soon as possible with the new waves of opportunities in different areas. And we believe we can do a lot of great things together," Mohammed said, speaking in English.
The Crown Prince said the Saudi pledge for 200 billion US dollars in investments would eventually reach 400 billion US dollars when fully implemented. He said a 10-year window for implementing the deal was under way.
Trump meanwhile said that the Saudis were “also footing a big part of the bill for defense” in “the whole Middle East” but made clear that he expects more from Riyadh.
The Washington Post reported that Trump, in a December telephone call, asked Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz to contribute four billion US dollars towards reconstruction and stabilization efforts in part of Syria, where the battle against Islamic State militants is reaching completion.
King Salman is to visit the US later this year.
US President Donald Trump (4th R) meets with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (4th L) of Saudi Arabia in the Oval Office at the White House, March 20, 2018. /VCG Photo
Following his meeting with Mohammed, Trump said that US involvement was “coming to an end in that part of the world. And we’ll be able to get out of certain areas that we’ve wanted to get out of for a long period of time. And other countries can handle it.”
Also high on the agenda in the White House talks was confronting Iran, a country Trump has repeatedly criticized for its expansionist policies in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia on Monday called the Iran nuclear deal a "flawed agreement", and Trump has made clear he plans to exit the agreement unless changes are made to it.
Ahead of his US trip, the Crown Prince last week asserted that his kingdom will develop nuclear weapons if Iran does so, significantly raising the prospect of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
‘Disgraceful bragging’
The flaunting of Saudi-US military ties hasn’t gone well with peace groups, right activists and a number of US lawmakers, who have raised concerns over the US support to a Saudi-led coalition’s atrocities in Yemen that has killed over 9,000 people including at least 1,000 civilians, leading to a massive humanitarian crisis.
“It is disgraceful and beneath the dignity of the president to brag about the profits US weapons contractors made from selling to Saudi Arabia the arms they used to kill thousands of innocent civilians in Yemen,” Ploughshares Fund President Joseph Cirincione was quoted as saying by The Independent.
Ploughshares is involved in nuclear weapons policy and conflict resolution. “Trump is stoking a regional war in the Middle East and laughing about it,” Cirincione added.
Stressing that the latest US-Saudi arms deal “could be used to carry out abuses for years to come”, Andrew Smith of the UK-based Campaign Against Arms Trade said: “Despite its appalling record, [Saudi Arabia] has been able to count on the uncritical political and military support of successive US presidents. Today’s fawning images make it clear that Trump is going to continue this long and shameful tradition.”
Senator Bernie Sanders addresses demonstrators during a rally on the West Front of the Capitol to call on Congress to act on gun violence prevention during a national walkout by students, in Washington, DC, March 14, 2018. /VCG Photo
Just hours after the Saudi Crown Prince left the White House, the US Senate rejected a bipartisan bid to end American involvement in Yemen's civil war, voting down a rare effort to overrule presidential military authorization.
Senators voted 55-44 to kill the effort, which was aimed as a clear warning to the White House against signing a blank check to Saudi Arabia.
Independent Senator Bernie Sanders led 15 lawmakers to move the resolution that forced the first-ever vote in the Senate to withdraw US armed forces from what the draft labelled as an "unauthorized" war.
"If Congress wants to go to war in Yemen or any place else, vote to go to war," Sanders said. "That is your constitutional responsibility. Stop abdicating that responsibility to a President."
While the vote failed, it put the US support for Saudi-led war in Yemen into the congressional spotlight. The vote could have caused deep diplomatic embarrassment as it came on the day Trump hosted Salman at the White House.
(With input from agencies)
