One of Donald Trump’s big draws for his voters is that he’s supposedly different— in ways they think are good. Like being willing to shake the status quo and upend old ideas. Yet he’s spent the last week proving what a sham that is by expanding on America’s worst presidential tradition. A tradition that, like the annual White House Easter Egg roll, has long transcended party. It’s become as American as apple pie, fall football, and the Fourth of July. No matter what they say before getting elected, no President since Jimmy Carter has been willing to choose American morals, national security, independence, or freedom, over this one exasperating policy. In fact, I can’t think of a single US foreign policy that has been more consistent year in and year out than this: the President of the US bending the knee to the House of Saud. An autocratic regime that undeniably funds, arms, and exports terrorism. That has ties to the 9/11 attacks and encouraged the pointless wars that followed. That oppresses women, arrests dissidents, and executes journalists. That colludes with our elites and our adversaries to steal from American families. That uses their huge oil revenues to infiltrate our politics, our economy, and our farmland. That admits to fostering an era of conflict that has claimed the lives of more than 7,000 American service members, cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars, and contributed to worldwide instability. That has nuclear ambitions that threaten our national security and the stability of the region and the world. And here is Mr. Tough Guy himself, Mr. Different, bending down before the Saudis for the whole world to see. Just like, or possibly worse, than everyone who came before him. His only innovation? Expanding the sycophancy to the whole neighborhood to get himself a new jumbo jet. Instead of making the Saudis a much-deserved addition to our state sponsors of terrorism list, Trump is luncheoning in Riyadh alongside the CEO’s of America’s big tech and investment banks Blackstone and BlackRock, parroting Saudi-prepared talking points, and celebrating a so-called $600 billion Saudi investment in America as some great achievement. News flash: the Saudis were going to invest that money here and buy our arms anyway, because it’s profitable for them. The most insulting part of it all is that this $600 billion “investment” is essentially just a small fraction of our own money being lent back to us by the the people who stole it from us. It’s literally money the Saudis appropriated-- using their oil cartel’s monopoly power-- from hard working Americans at the pump over the years. A theft that ironically, they are only able to perpetrate because we spend billions of dollars every year protecting their shipping lanes with our military. As I wrote in the American Prospect, I’m a Marine veteran with multiple deployments in the disastrous war on terror and years of experience as an international negotiations and counter-WMD officer on the Joint Staff, and deals like this Saudi deal put American families in danger, dishonor American service members, and make our country a joke on the world stage. It isn’t just because the Saudis have already proven we can’t trust them—like when they broke an agreement a couple years ago to keep oil prices low, or when they were exposed for doling out American anti-tank missiles and armored vehicles to al Qaeda–linked fighters. It’s because while serving in Asia, Europe, and right here at home, I’ve seen firsthand how this supposed ally has done more harm to the American people than any other regime on the planet. In Iraq, I led a team of a dozen Marines training Iraqi police and running missions in the Sunni Triangle. Just a few years later, most of the Iraqi officers we trained were either killed by or fled from the Islamic State—a barbaric terrorist organization that relied on the Saudis for funding and theological inspiration as a part of Saudi Arabia’s growing list of proxy wars. In Afghanistan, where two Marines in my battalion were lost, I spoke with a Taliban prisoner in the Herat city penitentiary who was adamant that he’d kill me as soon as he had the chance. His organization was bankrolled by our supposed Saudi friends; that didn’t appear to blunt his resolve. On my first assignment with the Joint Staff, I worked with the National Security Council, State Department, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and CIA to combat the proliferation of nuclear technology and weapons of mass destruction. And now we have two Presidents in row, Biden then Trump, working toward deals to put the Saudis on the path to a nuclear program. I know the danger of adding the world’s most effective exporter of extremism to that marketplace of death. As an international negotiations officer at the Pentagon, I watched as the Saudi-led cartel, OPEC+, used its energy monopoly to suck us and our allies dry, and dragged us into a new era of overseas conflicts that have brought us the closest we’ve been to nuclear confrontation since the Cold War. Over the decades, our politicians’ Saudi-centered foreign policy has left us trillions of dollars in the red while we protect them, fight wars for them, and risk our lives for them. It’s left the Saudis fat and rich—so much so that they’re using the profits from our one-sided relationship to move ahead in AI development, launch huge mega-construction projects, help Elon Musk buy Twitter, and even transition to the next generation of energy. Throwing a couple of our own nickels back at us, as investment that’s going to earn them a nice profit, is not a victory, Mr. President. It’s just another example of cowardice regarding the Saudis. Like President Obama, after calling the Saudis “free riders” for taking advantage of us, vetoing a bill passed by Congress that would allow the families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudis for their ties to the 2001 attacks. Like Trump 1.0 campaigning on banning Saudi oil in an attempt to secure independence from “our foes and the oil cartels,” only to then proactively offer to use our military to defend Saudi oil supplies as president. Or Biden in 2019 promising to make Saudi Arabia a pariah state, only to become one of their staunchest allies ever in the Oval Office. So much for being different. On the plus side, even his biggest MAGA supporters, like Laura Loomer and Ben Shapiro, are calling him out for it. There might never be a better time to remind people just how corrupt he is. Lucas You're currently a free subscriber to Lucas’s Substack. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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