Saudia Arabia represents 9% of our oil barrel imports, and that number has been dwindling over time as we import more and more from Canada and our domestic supply grows. 9% is a big number when talking about oil imports to the biggest energy consumer in the world, but they aren't as big of a player in US oil as many might think. For reference, Canda represents 40% of our imports.

We do have significant, billion dollar arms deals with Saudi Arabia, but those deals are mutually beneficial, and I think we could maintain those deals while still punishing them for this offense.

I could be wrong, and our relationship is clearly complicated with Saudi Arabia. I just think Trump's response has been rather weak and he could be stronger while still maintaining key political and financial alliances with the country.

More importantly, I do think it is possible that he could accept the CIA's conclusions about Khashoggi's murder and also present a logical argument to not let that interfere with our key financial relationships. I think that's a better alternative than rejecting his own intelligence's conclusions.

I mostly agree, just think that you really underestimate how tough it would be to sell all of this to the public. And Trump is in a petty feud with the CIA anyway, so he's just gonna show the metaphorical finger to everything they come up with.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 29 2018 06:39pm

Agreed. It would be a tough and complicated sell, but there's also issues with diverging from your own intelligence.

Trump's war against US intelligence is actually one of my favorite things he has done as President, but I do think the CIA's conclusions are probably correct here about MBS.

I also despise Saudi Arabia, which could be clouding my judgement on this complicated geopolitical subject. I think radical Islam is one of the greatest threats to our entire world, and Saudi Arabia is the greatest exporter of it.

https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/white-liberals-present-themselves-as-less-competent-in-interactions-with-african-americans

we secretly want a bigger penis.
do you secretly want to stop being racist?

Excuse me im french, "liberal" word doesn't exist here, and i'm so attractive the issue is to get ride of those foolish females, btw girls are horribly jealous it cause many problems.

you're so attractive, want to get rid of all women and think a female presence in your life only causes problems?

Do Trump supporters think that the President should have divested himself more from his business before taking the oath of office or are you comfortable with taking his word that he won't let it influence him?

he should have, but at the same time, it seems obvious to me that a complete divestment/disentanglement would not have been practical in this specific case.

say he had separated all his personal ties with his business empire by giving it to his children - he would still have continued to talk to his children, and he would obviously have continued to know which policies and stances would benefit or hurt his family's business. and handing over control of the company to lawyers or technocrats would just not work for a real estate company. and it would have had to imply kicking out his children, who already held senior positions inside the company. can we really ask the adult children of presidents to abandon their career?

it's just a murky case from start to finish. he could and should have done more, but every measure which is imaginable within a realistic scope would not have been enough to eliminate potential conflicts of interest.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 30 2018 01:07am