
Saudi Arabia
Timeline
2001.06 | Trump sells the 45th floor of Trump World Tower to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for $4.5 million dollars. nydailynews.com (See also Trump Business, Conflicts of Interest) Trump was paid at least $5.7 million by the Saudi government since 2001. |
2001.07 | Trump is sued for refusing to pay broker fees to a group who helped facilitate a $4.5 million dollar deal between him and Saudi Arabia. deadstate.org (See also Lawsuits, Trump Business) |
2016.11.16 | Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih warns Trump that trying to block oil sales from Saudi Arabia would harm the U.S. and the global economy. money.cnn.com |
2016.12.09 | Trump closes four companies with possible ties to Saudi Arabia after the election. pbs.org |
2017.01.27 | Trump's immigration ban excludes countries where he has done business or pursued potential deals. bloomberg.com (See also Conflicts of Interest, Egypt, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Muslim Immigration Ban) |
2017.02.07 | The Trump administration is poised to move quickly to approve major weapons packages for Saudi Arabia and Bahrain that President Obama blocked during his final months in office over human rights concerns m.washingtontimes.com (See also First 100 Days, Bahrain, Human Rights) |
2017.03.17 | Pressure from The United States and Saudi Arabia forces the G20 to drop any mention of Climate change financing in their draft statement. reuters.com (See also First 100 Days, Environment, Climate Change) |
2017.06.05 | Trump announced a $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia in May to much fanfare, but the only problem is that it doesn't exist. brookings.edu (See also Corruption, False Statements) |
2017.06.17 | In the feud among nations in the Persian Gulf, Trump has supported those with which he does business, criticizing Qatar, differing sharply from the positions of the Pentagon and State Department. nytimes.com (See also Corruption, Conflicts of Interest, Foreign Policy, Rex Tillerson, Department of State) |
2017.07.10 | A few months before Trump encouraged Saudi Arabia and others to blockade Qatar, the real estate business owned by the family of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, sought, and failed to get, a substantial investment from one of the Gulf State country’s wealthiest and most politically influential figures. bloomberg.com (See also Conflicts of Interest, Qatar, Jared Kushner) |
2017.12.04 | A construction company owned in part by the governments of Saudi Arabia and South Korea plans to build a Trump-branded luxury resort development in Indonesia despite a vow from Donald Trump that his family business would not make any deals with foreign government entities while he serves as president. mcclatchydc.com (See also Conflicts of Interest, Trump Business, False Statements) |
2018.03.21 | A cooperating witness in the special counsel investigation worked for more than a year to turn a top Trump fund-raiser into an instrument of influence at the White House for the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. nytimes.com (See also Rex Tillerson, Corruption, Department of State, Iran) High on the agenda of the two men — George Nader, a political adviser to the de facto ruler of the U.A.E., and Elliott Broidy, the deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee — was pushing the White House to remove Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, backing confrontational approaches to Iran and Qatar and repeatedly pressing the president to meet privately outside the White House with the leader of the U.A.E. |
2018.05.11 | Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has questioned several witnesses about millions of dollars in donations to Donald Trump’s inauguration committee last year, including questions about donors with connections to Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. abcnews.go.com (See also Legal Activity, Corruption, Russia, Trump Relationship with Russia) |
2018.10.11 | Despite the suspected murder of a prominent Saudi journalist Donald Trump declared his relations with Saudi Arabia “excellent," and that he was not in favor of stopping arms sales to Saudi Arabia. nytimes.com (See also Foreign Policy, Jared Kushner) |
2018.10.17 | The Trump administration and the Saudi royal family are searching for a mutually agreeable explanation for the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi — one that will avoid implicating Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is among the president’s closest foreign allies. washingtonpost.com (See also Unprecedented Actions, Foreign Policy) |
2018.10.19 | Donald Trump broke with his own intelligence agencies, accepting Saudi Arabia’s explanation that the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed by accident during a fistfight, while the United States’ spy agencies are increasingly convinced that he was assassinated on high-level orders from the Saudi royal court. nytimes.com (See also Unprecedented Actions, Corruption) |
2018.10.19 | Donald Trump openly praised Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) for assaulting a reporter in his bid for Congress last year, as the United States faced an unfolding crisis over missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who is believed to have been killed by Saudi Arabian agents. washingtonpost.com (See also Assaults on Civil Liberties, Unpresidential Behavior) |
2018.10.29 | Every time Donald Trump mentions the $110 billion arms deal he negotiated with Saudi Arabia last year, he quickly follows up, saying “It’s 500,000 jobs," but if he means new U.S. defense jobs, an internal document from Lockheed Martin forecasts fewer than 1,000 positions would be created by the defense contractor. reuters.com (See also False Statements, Assaults on Facts, Jobs) |
2018.11.15 | The White House is looking for ways to remove an enemy of Turkish President Recep Erdogan from the U.S. in order to placate Turkey over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. nbcnews.com (See also Department of Homeland Security, Unprecedented Actions, Department of Justice) |
2018.11.20 | Donald Trump said that the U.S. will stand by Saudi Arabia regardless of whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. axios.com (See also Foreign Policy, Unprecedented Actions) |
2018.11.20 | The bipartisan leadership of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is demanding a definitive determination from Donald Trump about whether Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. politico.com (See also Foreign Policy, Conflicts of Interest) In a letter to Trump, Sen. Bob Corker and Sen. Bob Menendez specifically asked whether the administration believed that bin Salman was involved in the murder of Khashoggi. |
2018.11.26 | Donald Trump's reluctance to hold Saudi leadership accountable for the brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi stemmed from a $14 billion arms deal between the US and Saudi Arabia, which was inflated inaccurately to $110 billion at the direction of Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner. abcnews.go.com (See also False Statements, Jared Kushner, Conflicts of Interest) |
2018.12.04 | US Senators emerged from an unusual closed-door briefing with the CIA director and accused the Saudi crown prince of complicity in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, with some of their strongest statements to date, saying evidence presented by the U.S. spy agency overwhelmingly pointed to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s involvement in the assassination. washingtonpost.com (See also Assaults on Facts, Corruption) |
2018.12.05 | Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo misled senators last week in a Senate-only briefing on the murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the result of having to tiptoe around Donald Trump’s refusal to pin blame for the killing on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. politico.com (See also James Mattis, Mike Pompeo, Department of Defense, Department of State, False Statements, Corruption) |
2018.12.05 | Lobbyists representing the Saudi government reserved blocks of rooms at Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C., hotel within a month of Trump’s election in 2016 — paying for an estimated 500 nights at the luxury hotel in just three months. washingtonpost.com (See also Conflicts of Interest, Corruption, Trump Business) |
2018.12.09 | The United States joined a controversial proposal by Saudi Arabia and Russia to weaken a reference to a key report on the severity of global warming, at the global climate summit in Poland aimed at gaining consensus over how to combat rising temperatures. washingtonpost.com (See also Environment, Assaults on Government, Assaults on Facts, Russia) Arguments erupted before a United Nations working group focused on science and technology, where the United States teamed with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to challenge language that would have welcomed the findings of the landmark report, which said that the world has barely 10 years to cut carbon emissions by nearly half to avoid catastrophic warming. |
2018.12.13 | The Senate voted to end American military assistance for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen in the strongest show of bipartisan defiance against Donald Trump’s defense of the kingdom over the killing of a dissident journalist. nytimes.com (See also False Statements, Unpresidential Behavior, Mike Pompeo) |