OrangeVerse XXXI: Equipment and Other Things

The president had a couple of opportunities (before a bilateral meeting, and before a presumably bilateral luncheon) to talk about wealth-sharing with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.  The Crown Prince is here to celebrate big arms deals and stuff like that.  And, of course, for the poetry slam.

Thank

you 

every

body.

 It's a 

great 

honor to 

have the 

Crown Prince 

with us. Saudi 

Arabia has been a very 

great friend and a big 

purchaser of equipment

and lots of other things. 

And one of the biggest

investments in the United 

States is their - I guess it's

your big investment - is 

buying stock in companies 

and various other things

in the United States and creating 

jobs.We've become very good friends 

over a fairly short period of time. I was 

in Saudi Arabia in May. And we are bring-

ing back hundreds of billions of dollars

into the United States. And we understand

that, and they understand that. Some of the

things that - have been approved and are cu-

rently under construction and will be deliver

-ed to Saudi Arabia very soon, and that's for 

their protection. But if you look in terms of

dollars, $3 billion, $533 million, $525 million -

that's peanuts for you. You should have increased

it $880 million, $645 million, $6 billion - that's

for frigates; $889 million, $63 million - and that's 

for various artillery. Some of the things that we're

now working on and that have been ordered and

will shortly be started in construction and delivered:

the THAAD system - $13 billion; the C-130 airplanes

the Hercules, great plan - $3.8 billion; the Bradley

vehicles - that's the tanks - $1.2 billion; and the P-8

Poseidons - $1.4 billion and what it does is it really

means many, many jobs. We're talking about over

40,000 jobs in the United States. So we make the

best equipment in the world. There's nobody even

close and Saudi Arabia is buying a lot of this equip-

ment and a lot of people are at work making the e-

quipment, no only for us - because we are, as you

know, we're getting a $700 billion military propo-

sal. And that's even a lot for you guys. But we're

getting a $700 billion military plan this year and

716 will be next year - $716 billion. So we really

have a great friendship, a great relationship. I

would really have to say the relationship was

to put it mildly, very, very strained during the

Obama administration. And the relationship now

is probably as good as it's really ever been and I

think will probably only get better. Tremendous

investments made in our country. And that means

jobs for our workers, jobs for our people. Also 

defense. We're talking about defense and we're 

working very hard with Saudi Arabia. And they

're also footing a big part of the bill for defense

- the whole Middle East. And we know what's

happened in the Middle East. And it has not 

been a pretty picture for the United States or

for anybody. And a lot of things are changing,

and they're changing very rapidly. As you know

ISIS is now - we've recaptured almost 100 percent

of the territory, as you probably have heard before

anybody. But we've captured close to 100 percent

of the territory held by ISIS. We've moved very

rapidly, very quickly. And that's really coming

to an end in that part of the world - it's coming

to an end. And we'll be able to get out of certain

areas that we've wanted to get out of for a long

period of time. And other countries can handle it.

At this point, they'll be able to handle it.

So it's a great honor to have your and

your representatives here Crown Prince -

thank you very much. Thank you for

being here. Thank you, Mr. President.

Actually the relations between Saudi

Arabia and the United States of America,

it's old relation. We are the oldest ally for

the United States of America in the Middle East.

More than 80 years of alliance and big interest - 

politically, economically, and security, in dif-

fierent area - a lot of area. And the foundation

for relation, it's really huge and really deep. It's an
honor to have the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia with us

and his representatives, many of whom I know and I met 
in May when we were over there, where a promise of $400 
billion was made by Saudi Arabia for the purchase of our eq
uipment and other things.And the relationship is probably the 
strongest it's ever been. We understand each other Saudi Arabia 
is a very wealthy nation and they are going to give the United States 
some of that wealth, hopefully in the form of jobs, in the form of the 
purchase of the finest military equipment anywhere in the world. 
There's nobody even close.