06-02-2017 (Photo:President Trump's Trip Abroad | by The White House ... ) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules Twitter: @BatchelorShow

The Kingdom makes Trump an offer the Kingdom can't refuse. Gregory Copley, Defense & Foreign Affairs.

Riyadh’s New Deal with the US: Averting Implosion?

Analysis. From GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs staff in Riyadh and Washington, DC. Saudi Arabia’s de facto head of government, Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin ‘Abd al-’Aziz al Sa’ud, has gambled the survival of the House of Sa’ud on winning US support for the transformation of the Kingdom’s strategic fortunes.

The commitment of some $200- to $350-billion in investment in, and purchases from the United States — including some $110-million of defense procurement over 10 years outlined during the visit by US Pres. Donald Trump to Riyadh on May 20, 2017 — was made during the visit by the Deputy Crown Prince (the King’s son, often referred to as “MBS”) to Washington on March 17, 2017. Trump White House sources had been unimpressed with the young Prince1, who had engineered the Kingdom’s highly-expensive military intervention into Yemen, but were willing to accept his offer.

The essence of the deal which Prince Mohammed reportedly felt that he made was that the US would help extricate the Kingdom from its strategic impasse with Iran, from its war with Yemen, and from the reality that — absent the US — Saudi Arabia had no major power ally on which it could rely. Its attempts to switch allegiance to Russia were rebuffed, given Moscow’s clear understanding that its strategic necessity has always been to control the Northern Tier states of Iran and Turkey. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) had determined similarly.

And Egypt, which had fallen out with Saudi Arabia2, was also clearly more significant, geopolitically, as an ally to Washington than Saudi Arabia, and the incoming Trump Administration had gone to great lengths to woo it back as a US ally. Saudi Arabia, in effect, was becoming isolated at the same time that it was running gradually out of funds. Even the slight recovery of oil prices in 2016 did not halt the slide in Saudi foreign exchange reserves, which were constantly being depleted by the war in Yemen and Saudi engagement in the conflicts in Iraq and Syria. At the same time, the Kingdom faced increasing pressure for economic reforms which would alleviate pressures from the bulk of the Saudi population — which is predominantly non-Saudi — for better incomes and conditions. ..."