Donald Trump just delivered spectacular proof of the truth in Shakespeare’s famous line about deception: “One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”
This morning, he spoke via video to the well-heeled crew at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, appearing to be fulsome about the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman. “He’s a fantastic guy,” he said. And then mentioned that he’s going to ask MBS to “round out” the $600 billion investment he promised yesterday on the phone to one trillion.
And then he blithely demanded that the Saudis and OPEC lower oil prices in order to end the Russia-Ukraine war…
“Saudi Arabia is f…..d” read one of the many astonished messages flooding into my WhatsApp.
Or is the picture more complicated?
My sources suggest that it is.
Even ahead of Trump’s lecture to the crowd at Davos, my phone was blowing up this morning around the news of the call, yesterday, in which MBS promised Trump $600 billion.
Most of the data suggests that Saudi Arabia cannot remotely afford that, as it pushes to wean itself away from an oil-dependent economy. On top of paying a projected minimum $1.3 trillion for Vision 2030, MBS needs to build the infrastructure to host the 2034 FIFA world cup.
In December, Saudi’s foreign reserves fell to $414 billion – less than the money he promised to Trump. If the reserves fall further there’s a risk Saudi Arabia will need to devalue its currency.
The Kingdom’s GDP is about $1 trillion. So in other words, if you take things at face value, MBS just pledged $600 billion over four years – which works out to $150 billion a year – in other words, 15 percent of the current Saudi GDP to invest in the US….
It hardly makes sense.
So, why did MBS make the phone call and promise to spend that amount?
Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates