President Trump is warning Saudi Arabia of “severe punishment” if the oil kingdom was responsible for the disappearance of a U. S. newspaper columnist who has been highly critical of the new Saudi king.
President Trump is warning Saudi Arabia of “severe punishment” if the oil kingdom was responsible for the disappearance of a U. S. newspaper columnist who has been highly critical of the new Saudi king.
“We’re going to get to the bottom of it and there will be severe punishment,” Trump said in an interview with CBS News to be aired Sunday. In a clip aired Friday on “CBS This Morning,” Trump said mush is at stake “and maybe especially so because this man was a reporter.”
Jamal Khashoggi, who wrote columns for the Washington Post critical of the Saudi government, disappeared after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Trump said the U. S. would be “very upset and angry” if the Saudi government was involved in his disappearance and that the Saudis have denied it “every way you can imagine.”
“It’s a terrible, terrible precedent. We can’t let it happen and we’re being very tough,” Trump said.
On canceling Saudi military contracts, Trump said: “I will tell you, upfront, right now, and I’ll say it in front of senators: They’re spending $110 billion purchasing military equipment and other things. If we don’t sell it to them, they’ll say, ‘Well, thank you very much. We’ll buy it from Russia.’ Or ‘Thank you very much. We’ll buy it from China. ‘ That doesn’t help us — not when it comes to jobs and not when it comes to our companies losing out on that work.”
