If Donald Trump, the Republican Party nominee for the presidency of the United States, found it convenient to propose a ban of all Muslims from entering the country, his vision on how to go about his deed shocked one of America’s closest allies. Hundreds of thousands of Saudis who studied in the U.S. during the past 75 years, and who brought back with them much more than diplomas, were livid that a candidate for office in an allied country could be so prejudiced, even if most assumed that Trump’s uneducated biases would wither at the proverbial vine. Muslims in general, and Saudis in particular, remained confident that the Republican contender would not win even if many voiced concerns over the sectarian discourse. Many looked forward to turning the hatred page on November 8, though some were concerned that a great deal of time was required to heal damaged ties.
Given what was at stake, a security alliance against extremism along with an unparalleled economic association that sustained contemporary capitalist engines, Saudis were as preoccupied as Americans with the presidential elections that, regrettably, empowered fanatics. A few high-ranking personalities, men like Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the billionaire who bailed Trump out on two separate occasions, first in 1991—when he bought a yacht Trump had put up for sale—and second in 1995—when he bought a stake in Trump’s Plaza Hotel—advised him to withdraw from the race. Prince Alwaleed asserted that the New Yorker was a “disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America,” after the mogul suggested that all Muslims be banned from entering the country.
Such an opprobrium drew a typical Trump rebuttal when the egotistical candidate posted a Twitter image that turned out to be a photo-shopped picture of the Saudi tycoon alongside former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and a woman whose identity was obscured by a niqab [a piece of clothing that covers the face], whom the Republican politician identified as the Saudi’s sister. Alwaleed bin Talal responded with a tweet of his own, lamented the reliance on propaganda fare, and even offered to bail him out a third time. Trump reportedly denied having been bailed out but added: “Never liked him. Never met him,” referring to the Saudi.
Other high-ranking Saudi officials were more discreet, with the seasoned Adel Al-Jubeir, who became Minister of Foreign Affairs on April 29, 2015, skillfully deflecting criticisms lobbed against Saudi Arabia by both Trump as well as the Democratic contender, Hillary Clinton. When a CNN reporter asked Al-Jubeir how he foresaw future relations between his country and the U.S. under a possible Trump presidency, especially in light of the latter’s comments about Muslims, the articulate diplomat responded tactfully: “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the United States is a bipartisan one,” he said. “The one constant is that with every decade it grows stronger, broader and deeper.”
The Kingdom’s former chief of intelligence, ambassador to the UK and the U.S., as well as Chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Prince Turki al-Faisal, was more forceful when he warned against a Trump presidency. “For the life of me,” he told a Washington Institute For Near East Policy dinner in early May 2016, “I cannot believe that a country like the United States can afford to have someone as president who simply says, ‘These people [Muslims] are not going to be allowed to come to the United States.’ I just hope you, as American citizens,” concluded Prince Turki, “will make the right choice in November.”
Everyone noted how Trump’s stances changed since December 2015 when his proposal to ban Muslims was first aired. At the time, and reacting to the San Bernardino, California, shooting, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” which did not speak very highly of the country’s law enforcement establishment since, presumably, they could not figure out what the contender affirmed “was going on.” In January 2016, Trump reiterated his position and told a partisan Fox Business Network’s GOP debate that Americans better “stop with political correctness. We have to get down to creating a country that’s not going to have the kind of problems that we’ve had with people flying planes into the World Trade Centers, with the—with the shootings in California, with all the problems all over the world. … We have to find out what’s going on.”
These comments further denigrated officials, allegedly because they ignored what had happened on 9/11 or what befell on the country after similar incidents occurred around the world.
Against harsh criticisms, the candidate softened his position and, starting in May 2016, emphasized the temporary nature of the ban, which “will be lifted,” he proclaimed, “when and as a nation we’re in a position to properly and perfectly screen these people coming into our country.”
Beyond his avowed limitations, Trump failed to clarify his contradictory positions on this and other major foreign policy concerns during his August 15, 2016 Youngstown, Ohio, address, which preoccupied global audiences. Although murky plans to combat global terrorism were dutifully outlined, Saudis noted that Trump continued to call for the extreme vetting of immigrants, ostensibly to identify what he termed “the Muslim extremist ideology.” Mercifully, high-ranking Saudis and other Arab leaders noted how die-hard Republicans distanced themselves from Trump after what turned out to be a particularly poor performance, and took note that officials like Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and former C.I.A. Director Michael Hayden, all stated that they could not, and would not, vote for Donald Trump on November 8. Moreover, Saudi media outlets wrote extensive reports on declarations made by senators John McCain (R-Arizona), Mark Kirk (R-Illinois), Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska), Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), among others, all of whom further perceived Trump as a glorified amateur, even if everyone acknowledged that the real-estate kingpin displayed oratorical skills that silenced foes.
Interestingly, when the Wall Street Journal urged Trump to withdraw from the race on August 14, 2016—or eight months after Prince Alwaleed bin Talal first recommended the same pill—Saudi papers focused on the influential business daily’s position, arguing that if a pro-conservative editorial page advised the candidate to act “presidential” or step down from the race, that perhaps the time was ripe to simply wait for the inevitable defeat at the polls.
It was ironic but somewhat telling that in his Youngstown presentation, Trump used a clever sentence—that while America “can never choose [its] friends, but … can never fail to recognize [its] enemies”—to denigrate Muslims in general, and Arabs in particular, which prompted Saudi commentators to note its venomous implications, as officials on both sides pledged to repair the rhetorical damage.
