Last year Saudi Arabia was the fastest growing Group of 20 nation, and if it were up Mohammed bin Salman, the 21st century would entirely to belong to the desert monarchy.
In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News, the controversial crown prince and de facto ruler explained why he is prioritizing commerce over politics and laid out his ambition to modernize and diversify the oil state as part of a decade-long plan.
Everything from traditional infrastructure and manufacturing projects to splurging billions to build out its sports and tourism industry can and will be mobilized to squeeze out every last percent point of growth, he vowed.
If this means Americans will continue to spend heavily at the pump amid Saudi Arabia’s unilateral oil production cuts, then this is simply business in his view—nothing personal.
“In 1980, we were No. 12 globally in GDP, and in 2016 we were No. 20,” he said. “I’m trying to get Saudi Arabia back on the right track.”
Specifically, the crown prince criticized how the country—once larger than South Korea in terms of gross domestic product in the late 1970s—had allowed itself to fall behind the Asian tiger during his lifetime. Joining the BRICS association that includes Russia and China was therefore an economic decision, he claimed, and not directed against the West.
“We have in the past a few issues in Saudi Arabia, a lot of opportunities that we didn’t use,” bin Salman said. “We’re trying to capture that.”
NEOM, a new Saudi economic development region across the Red Sea from Egypt’s resort of Sharm el Sheikh, is perhaps his best known flagship project and served as the backdrop for the interview.
But bin Salman’s ambitions go much further than that. The country is building a railway system that will link Europe with India, bypassing the threat of modern piracy in areas like the Indian Ocean and in the process and speed up shipments.
“Logistics is important if you want to manufacture in your country, if you want to move goods it’s important to have good logistics plan,” he said. “That project will cut the time of goods from India to Europe by three to six days—cut time, save money, and it’s more safe, more efficient.”
One of the stipulations Lucid, the upstart manufacturer of luxury electric vehicles, made when securing funding from Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF was to consider building a factory in the country.
But attracting more investments in heavy industry is only one goal. Saudi Arabia has also grabbed the headlines recently by using its vast oil wealth to buy the Professional Golf Association tour.
Bin Salman also spent big to attract the biggest names in international football. And although he failed to convince Lionel Messi to join the Saudi league, the Argentine’s longtime rival—Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo—is now playing for Saudi club Al Nassr.
Bin Salman also said PIF was investing in the rapidly growing eSports business, confessing himself that his preferred form of relaxation was escaping into the world of video games.
“If sportswashing increases my GDP by 1%, then I will continue doing sportswashing,” he told Fox News unapologetically. “I have 1% growth in GDP from sport and I’m aiming for another one and a half percent. Call it whatever you want, we’re going to get that one and a half percent.”
Bin Salman, who characterized President Joe Biden as “sharp” and their relationship as “amazing”, came across as pragmatic when it came to the issue of regional security.
He said he was perfectly happy to accept China’s diplomatic efforts that brokered the opening of official diplomatic ties with regional arch-rival Iran.
“We see from the Iranians they are taking this very seriously, and they are doing their best, so we are investing in that,” he said just days after the one-year anniversary of the death of Mahsa “Zhina” Amini. The ethnic Kurd perished at the hands of Iran’s morality police while on a visit to Tehran last September, sparking the biggest nationwide protests in over a decade.
He did say that if Iran achieved nuclear capability, however, he too would push to make Saudi Arabia a nuclear power. “If they get one, we have to get one—for security reasons, for balancing power in the Middle East,” he said flatly.
Pressed if he would be willing to open diplomatic relations with Israel, bin Salman said he would, but only if there was a solution to ease the suffering of the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. When asked what form that might take—since bin Salman notably did not use the term “statehood”—he simply replied that was all part of the negotiation process.
Finally on the subject of politics, bin Salman offered little to critics of the country’s poor human rights record.
He merely expressed hope that a Saudi man sentenced to death for Twitter posts he made criticizing policy and the crown prince himself might eventually receive a reprieve in an attempt to portray his justice system as entirely independent and based on the rule of law.
The grisly murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, believed by U.S. intelligence to be carried out at bin Salman’s order, was a “mistake” in his words, but he didn’t shed any further light on the circumstances.
And on the subject of 9/11, he claimed dead Al Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden was just as much at war with the Saudi kingdom as he was with America. Families blaming Saudi Arabia and pushing for the U.S. to downgrade its alliance with the crown prince therefore would only be inadvertently serving the terrorist’s interests.
Asked what message he would tell outsiders trying to make sense of the rapidly changing country, bin Salman replied: “I would tell them the greatest success story in the 21st century is Saudi Arabia. This is the story of this century—do you want to miss it or not?”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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