That Japanese Investment Money Trump Announced Today? Turns out It’s from Saudi Arabia!

On Tuesday afternoon, President-elect Donald Trump excitedly announced that telecommunications giant SoftBank Group has pledged to invest $50 billion in the U.S. and create 50,000 new jobs.

Of course, Trump made sure to give credit where credit was due.

The deal sounds great on the surface. After all, who could possibly argue with a $50 billion infusion and 50,000 jobs gained in the U.S. economy?

Now, what if you were told that the money was actually coming from the government of Saudi Arabia?

Here’s what Trump left out of his grand announcement:

According to the Wall Street Journal, the majority of the investment will come from a $100 billion investment fund that SoftBank set up in partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, which is controlled by the Saudi royal family, is the fund’s lead partner, the report added. This means that most of the money Mr. Son is going to invest in America is actually coming straight from Riyadh, and not through his Japan-based conglomerate.

The fund is overseen by Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz. Notably, the Saudi royal, who is the most powerful member of the family (outside the king himself), made sure to congratulate Trump on his election victory in November.

While on the campaign trail, Donald Trump rightfully demanded that Hillary Clinton return the investments the Clinton Foundation received from Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments.

“Hillary wrote that the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia are ‘providing clandestine and financial and logistical support to ISIL.’ Yet, in that same year, Bill and Hillary accepted a check from Saudi Arabia,” Trump said. “I think she should give back the $25 to $35 million she’s taken from Saudi Arabia. And she should give it back fast.”

Trump again castigated Clinton in June for taking money from the oil-rich kingdom.

“Saudi Arabia and many of the countries that gave vast amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation want women as slaves and to kill gays. Hillary must return all money from such countries!” Trump said on Facebook.

Saudi Arabia is a strict Islamic fundamentalist society. The country does not protect the unalienable human rights of its citizens. Women are forced to wear burkas, and are not allowed to travel freely without a male guardian. No religion other than Islam is recognized by the state, and apostates and atheists are often sentenced to death.

The United States and Saudi Arabia have almost zero shared values. The Washington, D.C. foreign policy establishment wants to preserve the monarchy there, but only to ensure that the unknown (e.g. a nefarious terrorist group) does not acquire control over the oil-rich territory.

The Saudis have utilized the wealth of their massive oil revenues to pursue influence operations in foreign countries, such as the U.S. Studies have shown that Riyadh’s campaigns to infiltrate American institutions, such as the media, academia, and Big Business, has had success in shaping a more pro-Saudi policy. The coming $50 billion Saudi-Japanese infusion into America will undoubtedly come with plenty of strings attached.

For the entirety of Trump’s presidential campaign, he forwarded a nationalist vision of putting American interests first — impervious to foreign and outside influences. And his “America first” messages garnered him a fiercely loyal following. Now that Donald Trump is the president-elect, he appears ready to abandon America’s interests for some decent publicity, betraying his electoral platform and base along the way. (For more from the author of “That Japanese Investment Money Trump Announced Today? Turns out It’s from Saudi Arabia!” please click HERE)

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