jamal khashoggi saudi arabia bad end arms sales trump quote

goods and services last year.įinally, it’s worth noting that under current conditions, increasing exports, even if you can do it, won’t create net additional jobs for the U.S.

He seems, for example, to be eager for a trade war with China, which imported $187 billion worth of U.S. labor market that employs almost 150 million workers.Īnother way to look at Saudi arms sales is to notice how small the stakes are compared with other areas where Trump is casually disrupting business relations. That is, we’re talking about a rounding error in a U.S. jobs involved is surely in the tens of thousands, if that, not hundreds of thousands. When you bear in mind that the industries involved, mainly aerospace, are highly capital intensive and don’t employ many workers per dollar of sales, the number of U.S. annual arms exports by more than a few billion dollars a year. It looks unlikely, then, that deals with Saudi Arabia will raise U.S. And the sales, if they did materialize, would be spread over a number of years. Many of these potential deals would involve production in Saudi Arabia rather than the U.S. What the Trump administration has actually gotten are mainly “ memorandums of intent,” best seen as possible future deals rather than commitments. That said, the claims are, in fact, false.įirst, there is no $100 billion Saudi arms deal. Even if the claims were true, we’re the United States we’re supposed to be a moral beacon for the world, not a mercenary nation willing to abandon its principles if the money is good. It’s not just that Trump’s claims about the number of jobs at stake - first it was 40,000, then 450,000, then 600,000, then a million - are lies.

But Trump’s attempt to head off retaliation for Saudi crimes by claiming that there are big economic rewards to staying friendly with killers - and the willingness of his political allies to embrace his logic - nonetheless represents a new stage in the debasement of America. O.K., it’s not news that the religious right has prostrated itself at Donald Trump’s feet. A few days ago, Pat Robertson, the evangelical leader, urged America not to get too worked up about the torture and murder of Jamal Khashoggi, because we shouldn’t endanger “$100 billion in arms sales.” I guess he was invoking the little-known 11th Commandment, which says, “On the other hand, thou shalt excuse stuff like killing and bearing false witness if weapons deals are at stake.”

Jamal khashoggi saudi arabia bad end arms sales trump quote