His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Crown Prince, Vice President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Defense, said that the unemployment rate in the Kingdom will begin to decline from 2019 and there will be no new taxes until 2030. He said that the Kingdom is moving in the right direction, and there is a big deal will be announced after two weeks later. The Crown Prince also affirmed that the Kingdom is able to protect its interests and buys weapons from the United States of America and does not take them for free. It has 1.3 million barrels of oil a day ready in case the market needs it. This came in an interview of the "Bloomberg Agency with His Royal Highness the Crown Prince as the following, quoting from Bloomberg transcript: Bloomberg: Trump said you would last two weeks only without the U.S. MBS: Saudi Arabia was there before the United States of America. It's there since 1744, I believe more than 30 years before the United States of America. And I believe, and I'm sorry if anyone misunderstands that, but I believe that President Obama, in his eight years, worked against many of our agenda – not in Saudi Arabia, but also in the Middle East. And even though the US worked against our agenda we were able to protect our interests, and at the end result is that we succeeded, and the United States of America under the leadership of President Obama failed, for example in Egypt. Saudi Arabia needs something like around 2,000 years to maybe face some dangers. So, I believe this is not accurate. Bloomberg: So if President Trump is doing other things that you want, you don't mind him saying these incredibly rude things? MBS: Well, you know, you have to accept that any friend will say good things and bad things. So you cannot have 100 percent friends saying good things about you, even in your family. You will have some misunderstandings. So we put that in that category. Bloomberg: I think Germany and Canada were friends, and it was less rude what they did. MBS: It's totally different. Canada, they gave an order to Saudi Arabia on an internal issue. It's not an opinion of Canada about Saudi Arabia as much as they are giving an order to a different country. So we believe this is a totally different issue. Trump is speaking to his own people inside the United States of America about an issue and you've got the answer now from me. Bloomberg: It does seem to be his opinion that the kingdom should pay more for its security. So do you agree with that? MBS: Actually we will pay nothing for our security. We believe that all the armaments we have from the United States of America are paid for, it's not free. So ever since the relationship started between Saudi Arabia and the United States of America, we've bought everything with money. Before two years ago, we had a strategy to shift most of our armament to other countries, but when President Trump became president, we've changed our armament strategy again for the next 10 years to put more than 60 percent with the United States of America. That's why we've created the $400 billion in opportunities, armaments and investment opportunities, and other trade opportunities. So this is a good achievement for President Trump, for Saudi Arabia. Also included in these agreements are that part of these armaments will be manufactured in Saudi Arabia, so it will create jobs in America and Saudi Arabia, good trade, good benefits for both countries and also good economic growth. Plus, it will help our security. -- More 13:27 LOCAL TIME 10:27 GMT 0002 www.spa.gov.sa/1822945
