Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has said he would consider stopping US oil purchases from Saudi Arabia and other Arab allies unless the Saudi government provide troops to fight Islamic State.
Trump made the comments in a lengthy foreign policy interview published by the New York Times on Saturday in response to a question about whether, if elected president, he would halt oil purchases from US allies unless they provided on-the-ground forces against Islamic State.
“The answer is, probably yes,” Trump said, according to a transcript.
Trump has said the US should be reimbursed by the countries it provides protection, even those with vast resources such as Saudi Arabia, a top oil exporter.
“We’re not being reimbursed for the kind of tremendous service that we’re performing by protecting various countries. Now Saudi Arabia’s one of them.”
“If Saudi Arabia was without the cloak of American protection, I don’t think it would be around,” he told the Times. Read full
