To the Editor:
Same subject, three examples.
1. While we are often obliged to deal with unsavory nations and leaders in the interests of world peace, it was not in those interests that two weeks ago Trump offered an extravagant WH welcome and giddy interaction with a Saudi Arabian prince, Mohammed bin Salman, nicknamed MBS. It included a military flyover and red carpet, and large formal dinner including a lavish dessert of slavering sweet nothings served up by our president.
This is the same prince identified by American intelligence agencies as ordering the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist and Saudi democracy activist, Jamal Khashoggi, in October 2018 by a Saudi hit squad. Trump blasted the question of one reporter, saying, “that man [Khashoggi] was a controversial figure…and things happened to him. But he [MBS] knew nothing about it. Why are you trying to embarrass our guest?” MBS assumed his saddest puppy face. The President of the US defended MBS’ murderous lie. Recall Zelensky’s insulting, querulous welcome, ridicule over his clothing, and Trump’s false accusation that Ukraine started the war with Russia.
Business deals involving Trump’s family and the Saudi government predate the last election. Jared Kushner famously cultivated close ties to MBS during the president’s first term. Thereafter, MBS overruled his own sovereign wealth fund advisors and gave $2 billion to Jared Kushner’s inexperienced private-equity investment firm. MBS included a $125 million-dollar “management fee” for Kushner, no doubt to reward his staunch support after the Khashoggi murder.
Dar Global, a Saudi-linked business partner of the Trump Organization, has announced multiple Trump-branded developments, and last year paid the Trump Organization $22 million dollars in licensing fees to use the Trump name. Trump insists that only “the boys have control” over the Trump Organization. I’ll skip over the Qatar-Trump Organization deals, and plans for Gaza.
2. Having formerly derided cryptocurrency as a “scam,” (but the magic word having been spoken!) Trump recently announced his sons have created their own new crypto company, World Liberty Financial, in which Saudi Arabia is investing. Trump dismisses ethics experts’ concerns for potential conflict-of-interest and national security issues in cryptocurrency ventures. If it was a conflict for Hunter Biden to engage in business deals with foreign countries, it is a conflict for Trump’s progeny.
3. Conservative WSJ recently published “Make Money Not War,” reporting that, even prior to the 2024 election, the Kremlin strategy was to convince this administration to “bypass the traditional US national security bureaucracy and view Russia not as a military threat but as a land of bountiful opportunity.” Trump’s narcissistic promise to “end in one day” the Russian war with Ukraine was teased and tumbled by Putin, but was recently re-revived.
In the last couple of months, Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff (major Trump donor, special envoy for Middle-East peace, cozy Putin whisperer, and business partner of Kushner’s), and Kirill Dmitriev, a Stanford- and Harvard-educated head of Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund, and Vladimir Putin’s designated negotiator who had already largely shaped the document they were revising, met in Miami “to decide Ukraine’s future.”
An early leaked version of the resultant 28-point Plan (now 19) product was largely criticized by Europe. Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk observed, “We know this is not about peace. It’s about business.” After the August Alaska meeting, a private report shocked the most senior world national security officials. It included details of the “commercial and economic plans the Trump Administration had been pursuing with Russia, including jointly mining rare earths in the Arctic.” To be continued.
The apparent “Trump Doctrine” is that our foreign policy is transactional, determined by Ka-Ching for Trump or his donors, not principle. Trump rails against the “evil horrors of communism” while he plays footsie with its chief proponent. Buckle up, Martin.
Kelly Scoles
Fillmore, Ca.