Outside InTrump’s treatment of Saudi Arabia, and China, shows trade is built on trust

Baron de Montesquieu observed more than 250 years ago that, “Peace is the natural effect of trade. Two nations who differ with each other become reciprocally dependent; for if one has an interest in buying, the other has an interest in selling; and thus their union is founded on their mutual necessities.”

One has to wonder what spin Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman can provide for this ancient truism at the end of two appallingly mesmerising weeks focused on Jamal Khashoggi and the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

With the full facts of the final hours of Khashoggi still ghoulishly unclear, the grisly snippets suggest a barbaric and unforgivable disregard by Saudi’s autocratic leader-in-waiting for the niceties of diplomatic civility. They also reveal the embarrassing haste of Trump and the White House to concoct alibis on bin Salman’s behalf that might whitewash such brazen uncivilised murderousness.

It was surreal to watch Trump complain that his good Saudi friend was – like Brett Kavanaugh, his recently appointed Supreme Court justice – being treated as guilty until proven innocent, and then leaping to assure US workers that he would not willingly renege on orders to sell US$110 billion of arms to Saudi Arabia. Montesquieu would have clearly understood: here is a union “founded on mutual necessities”.

Barak Barfi, at the New America think tank, captured well Trump’s Faustian dilemma this week, saying “Saudi Arabia wears too many hats for America to abandon it easily”. Thanks to its shale reserves, he notes, the United States is no longer dependent on Saudi oil, but Riyadh plays the role of stabilising markets, as well as providing billions to American defence contractors, intelligence for preventing terrorism and serving as a “bulwark” against Iran.