If the time traveler would have done his job and saved humanity from Trump, and this deal went through under a President Hillary, I’m quite sure this would be the scandal of the year. (Beats the email thing hands down.) Port Arthur would roll off your tongue like “Benghazi” as the GOP—and thus the media—would be raising hell.
Yet, with Trump in office, hardly anyone even realized this happened. I’d apologize for being late with this story, which happened in May, but I was a little distracted with the … you know … treason. Between the secret communication lines, the Comey firing, the Russian investigation, the interference of said investigation, the top secret info spilling with the Russian ambassador in the freaking White House, I missed that Saudi Arabia now has taken full control of a rather vital facility to our energy infrastructure:
America's largest oil refinery is now fully owned by Saudi Arabia.
Port Arthur is considered the crown jewel of the US refinery system. The Gulf Coast facility can process 600,000 barrels of oil per day, making it the largest refinery in North America.
What just happened? Trump supporters were assured that he was going to take a tough line with the Saudis. Besides his continuous rantings over how Saudi Arabia “blew up the WTC” and liked to kill people, Trump also swore that the oil-rich Arab kingdom would provide the United States with free oil for a decade. Yes, he actually promised that. That would have occurred right after Mexico sent us a check for the wall.
And before you say that Trump couldn’t have stopped the deal, not only could he have, but his “top energy advisor” and first pick for Energy Secretary, oil billionaire Harold Hamm, stated that Trump wouldn’t stand for foreign ownership of oil refineries:
Mr. Hamm also said that bids by foreign companies to own refineries should be examined by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., an intradepartmental body that analyzes whether a transaction could affect or harm national security.
He said the panel, known as CFIUS, was designed to prevent foreign entities from owning “strategic facilities”.
“How much more strategic can you get than a U.S. refinery??” Mr. Hamm said.
Yeah, well, the Saudis’ didn’t sweat any of it.
All they had to do was stroke his ego, which they did in spades at a White House meeting last January. They actually called the meeting an “historic turning point” and even gave their blessing to his stupid Muslim ban. (They didn’t care because they were “exempt”.) It didn’t hurt that the Saudis dropped over a quarter million at Trump’s hotel.
Trump ate it up. He made Saudi Arabia his first foreign visit, where the oil king would blatantly shower him with medals and trinkets, and donate millions to his daughter’s charity. And that was that.
Imagine a President Hillary Clinton bowing and scraping before the oil king soon after they took 100% control of our largest oil refinery. Try to imagine Trump’s Twitter outrage, followed by conservative media breathlessly reporting every hour about how Hillary is allowing Muslim control over our infrastructure. (Fox would just be jealous because the Saudis’ dumped them.)
Instead, the GOP politicians and rightwing media are quite silent about this deal. It’s just capitalism at work.
OH, and yes, because we are in Trump-land, Russia is getting in on the action as well:
Russia is on the verge of taking control of a US oil company.
In a crazy twist of international events, Russia's state-owned oil company Rosneft might end up owning Citgo, a US energy company based in Houston, Texas.
In hotly worded letters to the Trump Administration in recent days, members of Congress and senators warned that it could be a big problem for US national security if Russia gets a hold of Citgo.
If Russia’s Rosneft, which is still under US sanctions, takes control of a major US supplier, it would be a "grave threat to American energy security, impact the flow and price of gasoline for American consumers, and expose critical US infrastructure to national security threats.” Yeah, when has Russian national security threats stopped Trump? (BTW, guess who Citgo just brought on to lobby for them?)
Look, Trump only cares what two kinds of people think about him: his supporters and Russian leaders named Putin. Putin wants this and Trump’s supporters 1) don’t know anything about this, and 2) would justify it if they did. Conservatives will cave as they always do because they’ve already committed to swallowing whatever Trump gives them, no matter what authoritarian regime he sells America out to.
Conservatives, much like Trump, have already had to learn how to bow and scrape.