Social Media Activists Feel Humiliated by Trump’s Remarks on Saudi Arabia

Social media activists in Saudi Arabia were angered by US President Donald Trump’s humiliation and insult to the country and its “stupid” King Salman, complaining that he would never dare to speak such words if people really ruled the country instead of the al-Saud.

Social media users launched hashtags ‘Trump humiliating Salman again’ and ‘Trump humiliating Saudi Arabia’ to show their wrath at Washington and their rulers.

They also voiced regret over the US president’s recent remarks in which he explained about the method to plunder their country and posted tweets saying that “Trump elaborates on his method to attain Saudi wealth. It makes us cry”, “Were people the decision-maker, then Trump could not earn even a rial, dinar or dirham”, “Muslims’ properties spent for Hajj and Omrah are in hands of Trump with the help of Saudis” and “How long should silence rule when countering the US president’s comments about Saudi Arabia?”.

During a rally with his supporters in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump indicated that he would remain a steadfast supporter of the Saudi government, largely due to Riyadh’s purchases from US companies.

“They have nothing but cash, right?” he told the crowd. “They buy a lot from us, $450 billion they bought.”

“You had people wanting to cut off Saudi Arabia … I don’t want to lose them,” he said.

Trump then described a recent phone call with Saudi King Salman in which he demanded more money from the oil-rich nation in exchange for the defense the US provides.

“We lose $4.5 billion on a country to defend them, and they’re rich,” Trump said.

“So I called them. I said: listen, no good. They were in a state of shock because they’ve never got a call like this in 25 years, right,” he said as the crowd cheered.

Trump went on, “I said we’re losing $4.5 billion every year, we can’t do this anymore. This is crazy. He (King Salman) got very upset, angry, said this is not fair. I said, of course, this is fair. He said we’ll give you $500 million more … I said I want more. We argued. So they paid us more than $500 million for one phone call, it took me one call.”

He said the king then asked him why he was calling, because “nobody had made such a call”.

“That’s because they were stupid!” Trump said.