A Tale of Two Trumps

There seem to be at least two Donald Trumps on how to deal with Saudi Arabia, and it's difficult to know which one will trump the other in office.

Trump One said in 2015 that he's “not a big fan” of the Saudis. Trump Two gushed “I love Saudi Arabia” just a week later. Trump One suggested that Riyadh perpetrated 9/11 and calledit “the world's biggest funder of terrorism.” Trump Two saidAmerica should let the Saudis get nuclear weapons. Moments later he also said the kingdom should not be allowed to get nukes.

If there's one central theme to Trump's message on Saudi Arabia, it's that the kingdom should do morein exchange for America keeping it safe. This is something that President Obama has also expressed. Just this year, Obama called out Gulf monarchs like the Saudis as “free riders” in the fight against terror.

But there is also a danger of the new administration overplaying America's hand, a risk compounded by Congress's passage this fall of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which opens the Saudis up to certain terrorism suits.

Here are some key areas where the incoming Trump administration will soon have to make major decisions that determine the course of U.S. relations with the desert kingdom:

Iran

Iran's nuclear ambitions and terrorist activities pose a serious threat to both our Saudi allies and us. In his speech earlier this year at an AIPAC rally, Trump said his “number-one priority” was “to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.” Yet he pledged in that same speech to “enforce” the Iran deal “like you've never seen a contract enforced before.”

Saudi Arabia's former intelligence chief and unofficial spokesman Prince Turki al-Faisal recently urgedthe president-elect not to scrap the agreement but rather to stiffen the deal to prevent Iran from going nuclear when the deal sunsets after ten to fifteen years. Doing so could help protect America by discouraging not just Iran but also Saudi Arabia and several other Mideast states from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Syria

Prince Turki also recently called on Trump to fight Iran's “destabilizing activities” in the region – the crucible of which is Syria. And Trump seemed to pledge as much when told the same AIPAC crowd that his administration “will totally dismantle Iran's global terror network.”

But it's not clear how to do that while working with Russia, Iran's ally in Syria. For Iran's terrorist Quds Force and its proxy Hezbollah, keeping Syria's Assad regime in place is a key strategic goal that cannot be surrendered. The Saudis will be watching Mr. Trump's moves closely, with the understanding that these policies are going to be extremely difficult to align.

The Islamic World

Saudi Arabia is arguably the most influential country in the Arab world today. It is the custodian of Islam's two holiest sites and sees itself as a patron of Muslims worldwide. Thanks to its deep pockets, it also exerts considerable influence through coalitions or institutions such as the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and its new 39-nation “Islamic military alliance to fight terrorism.” Plus, the kingdom is the fourth-largest source of foreign university students in the United States, so it is understandably attuned to shifts in America's immigration policies toward Muslim countries.

Just after Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims” entering America, the Saudis hosted a summit of Gulf leaders that condemned “the increase in hostile, racist and inhumane rhetoric” against Muslims and refugees. The Saudis are also likely to view with concern Trump's stated consideration of some kind of Muslim registry, as well as the FBI's announcement that hate crimes against Muslims jumped by 67 percent last year.

King Salman's post-election congratulatory statement and phone call to Trump are signs the Saudis want to start relations on the right foot. But any actions seen to infringe on the dignity or rights of Muslim immigrants or U.S. citizens may motivate the king to try rallying dozens of Muslim-majority countries in retaliation.

Saudi Religious Incitement

One idea Trump should consider adopting from his rival is Hillary Clinton's proposal to press Saudi Arabia and its neighbor Qatar to stop exporting extremism “once and for all.”

The kingdom continues to publish official textbooks for children that the State Department sayscontain “derogatory and intolerant” passages toward Shia and non-Muslims. The Saudi government insists it has been carefully vetting its preachers' sermons for years, yet many Saudi preachers continue to incite undeniable hatred toward non-Muslims. At times that includes the kingdom's appointed grand mufti as well as members of the government's top religious council, preachers at the Mecca Grand Mosque, and recipients of an award for “service to Islam” that is personally handed out by the king.

While respecting each other's religious convictions, American and Saudi leaders need to have a frank dialogue about advancing tolerance and combating incitement.

JASTA

Like Hillary Clinton, Trump issued a full-throated endorsement of JASTA, which allows Americans to sue foreign governments for terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. It was mainly intended to allow families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi state, and Congress passed the bill over President Obama's veto in September.

Despite Trump's support for the measure, one of the candidates he reportedly considered for Secretary of State, John Bolton, argues that the law is “far more likely to harm the U.S. than bring justice.” Bolton believes that the law would elicit capital flight as well as retaliatory suits abroad. Anyway, such a suit is considered extremely unlikely to succeed in court given the continued absence of hard proof.

That is why both the Obama administration and bipartisan leaders in Congress have been looking for reasonable ways to narrow the law. Trump should do the same. One option would be to specify that foreign governments would only be liable for acts conducted by their operatives in an official capacity. Clarifying that simple uncertainty could do a great deal to limit JASTA's damage while still respecting the law's purpose. It all depends on whether Mr. Trump sees the need.

Energy Security and Trade

Trump has pledged “complete American independence” from “our foes and the oil cartels,” and even threatenedto cut off oil imports from Saudi Arabia. Yet so far his strategy seems mostly premised on increasing U.S. petroleum production, something that has failed to achieve real energy security to date.

Trump wrote in his 2011 book Time to Get Tough that America is the “'Saudi Arabia' of natural gas” and pointed out that Abu Dhabi has increasingly adopted natural gas as an alternative to gasoline. Trump could undermine OPEC with greater success by breaking gasoline's monopoly on the U.S. transportation sector, finally enabling consumers to fill their tanks with other fuels when they are cheaper.

Trump has called the Saudi regime a “money machine.” But with oil prices so low, the king's son has been working urgently to diversify his country's economy and attract foreign investment. If done properly, partnering on this initiative could help the Trump team create some American jobs while nudging Saudi Arabia in a more stable and inclusive direction.

It remains be seen how seriously Trump will approach the Saudi kingdom. A good first step would be to pick an ambassador to Riyadh who has professional-grade knowledge of Saudi Arabia, experience conducting U.S. diplomacy, and a solid grasp of these top priorities.

David Andrew Weinberg is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @DavidAWeinberg.