Nuclear technology sales to Saudi linked to Trump’s campaign

James Petras made the remarks about a congressional report that shows the United States is rushing to transfer “highly sensitive nuclear technology” to Saudi Arabia, with Trump being “directly engaged” in the push.

The House of Representatives’ Oversight and Reform Committee released the 24-page report on Tuesday, listing the actions taken by the Trump administration in an attempt to win government support for American firms to construct nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia, in what could increase the risk of spreading nuclear weapons technology.

Petras said, “Washington is engaged in rushing the sale of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia …..because many of the biggest financial contributors to Trump’s campaign are involved in the nuclear industry.”

“Trump is rushing this through because he suspects in congressional hearings the technological sales will not go through and this would adversely affect the big business supporters of Trump,” added Petras, a retired professor who has published on political issues with particular focus on Latin America, the Middle East and imperialism.

“So there is a financial dimension to the rush and it has to do with the elections in the United States and the importance of big business in financing Trump’s next election.”

He went on to say that “Trump has decided that the profits coming from Saudi Arabia are more important than the human rights issues that Saudi is violating.”

Saudi Arabia has lately stepped up politically-motivated arrests, prosecution and conviction of peaceful dissident writers and human rights campaigners.

In the most recent instance of persecution of dissidents by the Saudi regime, journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was a Washington Post columnist known for his critical writing on the Riyadh regime, was killed on October 2, 2018, after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. His body was reportedly dismembered and has not yet been found.