Deals and Duds, All the Way Down

By Jonah Goldberg

Friday, May 16, 2025

 

On Thursday, former FBI Director James Comey posted a picture on Instagram with the caption: “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” The shells were arranged to spell out “8647.”  This became an outrage on social media because, obviously, Comey was calling for Donald Trump (the 47th president) to be murdered.

 

Murdered? Yes. Murdered.

 

Donald Trump Jr. responded, “Just James Comey casually calling for my dad to be murdered.” Department of Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem leaped into action, tweeting, “Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of  @POTUS Trump. DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.” Current FBI Director Kash Patel, no doubt poolside in Vegas, said he was monitoring the situation closely, but the Secret Service was taking the lead.

 

 Not to be out done, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard scrambled to deal with this emergency the way leaders in national security and intelligence have since the old OSS days: She ran to a camera to talk to Fox News’ Jesse Watters and told him, “The danger of this [Instagram photo of some shell-numbers] cannot be underestimated.”

 

Watters got to the real crux of the issue quickly. “Do you believe Comey should be in jail?”

 

“I do,” Gabbard replied. Lest you think I’m unfairly leaving out the full context of her answer, here’s the run-on sentence fragment in all its glory: “I do. Any other person with the position of influence that he has, people who take very seriously what a guy of his stature, his experience, and what the propaganda media has built him up to be—I’m very concerned for the president’s life.”

 

Any other person … what? I don’t know. I gather she’s saying people who otherwise would not be inclined to risk their lives in an attempt to assassinate the president of the United States would of course do so when a person of (checks notes) James Comey’s stature and influence posts the number “8647” in shells.

 

No undue disrespect to Comey, but come on. Stature is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. But influence? What influence? James Comey is disliked by a remarkably diverse and large share of the U.S. population. At least the share that remembers who he is—or was. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think Comey should have posted that (and he did take the post down), but mostly because it was lame. However good he was as a lawyer or FBI director, he’s not good at politics and should just stick to writing novels.

 

I don’t want to belabor this, because you’re either embarrassed for the country by this unconstrained idiocy and asininity or you should probably be reading Gateway Pundit’s coverage of this very serious assassination plot. I don’t think Comey was calling for Trump’s assassination. Nor do I think there’s a person out there who would be motivated to assassinate the president by the numbers 8647, whether spelled in seashells, Cheetos, or the decapitated heads of Barbie dolls. But just for the record, even if the shells spelled out “Trump should be fed face first to bears,” Comey would be in no legal jeopardy. 

 

I do love that the same crowd that bragged about restoring the First Amendment and vowed to end the era of weaponizing the justice system went straight to the claim that Comey’s obvious incitement of violence demands that he be put behind bars. 

 

There’s no rule saying you have to be this dumb.

 

Saudi Arabia did what now?

 

In what has been called by a number of people—some of whom I  respect—the most important speech of Trump’s second term, on Tuesday at an event in Saudi Arabia, the president lavished praise on his hosts and marveled at the economic progress they have made. Then he added:

 

And it’s crucial for the wider world to note this great transformation has not come from Western interventionalists [sic] or flying people in beautiful planes giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs. No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Kabul, Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves, the people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies in your own way. It’s really incredible what you’ve done.

 

This is wrong. Oh, I don’t mean it’s wrong for presidents to crap on the foreign policy of previous administrations (though thinking so used to be a thing). When Barack Obama gave his first foreign speech in Egypt and dunked on his predecessors, conservatives carped that it was unpresidential or something really quaint. And I agree with Trump that “flying people in beautiful planes” lecturing Arabs on how to live had little to do with the affluence of the Gulf states. I don’t even mean it was wrong for Trump to indulge some MAGA fan service by taking a swipe at “neocons.”

 

I just mean that, factually, he is wrong. Incorrect. The Gulf states exist because of the United States of America.

 

No, we didn’t create them, the British and French did more of the heavy lifting on that front. But if not for American assistance and “interventionalism,” the hereditary monarchies and dynasties that pass for nation-states would have almost surely been toppled either by actual nationalists, socialists, national-socialists, or Islamic radicals of one stripe or another (as happened in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt, et al). Or, they would have been conquered by some of those nationalist or Islamist countries in the neighborhood, or by the Soviet Union.

 

We might as well start with President Franklin Roosevelt. World War II underscored the importance of oil. Beginning in 1940, Italy bombed Saudi and Bahraini oil facilities. The Saudis realized they needed protection, and Roosevelt realized protecting the oil supply from the Persian Gulf was in America’s interest. So he issued an executive order declaring that “the defense of Saudi Arabia is vital to the defense of the United States”  and made Saudi Arabia eligible for Lend-Lease.  In 1945, near the end of the war, FDR and Saudi King Ibn Saud met on the aircraft carrier USS Quincy and formalized the relationship between the countries (FDR declined to smoke or drink at dinner so as to not offend the king). America was granted permission to build military airfields and America offered protection of Saudi Arabia, its oil facilities, and, well, the regime.

 

There were lots of highs and lows during the Cold War. For instance, I can say without fear of arousing accusations of undue exaggeration that Israel was a bone of contention. But FDR’s basic idea—which we extended to the other Gulf states—of trading security for oil held fairly constant. Other factors came into play. Preventing the Soviets from setting up shop became another priority.

 

President Jimmy Carter introduced the “Carter Doctrine” in 1980, which was just an update of FDR’s project: We would use military force to protect our interests in the Persian Gulf. This had less to do with protecting oil supply lines than putting the Soviets on notice, after their invasion of Afghanistan, that they shouldn’t get any ideas about moving further West.

 

In 1987 the Reagan administration reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers—and naval escorts—to fend off Iranian attacks. 

 

And then of course there was the first Iraq war, when we sent hundreds of thousands of American and allied troops to the region to roll back Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and to protect Saudi Arabia. Whether Saddam Hussein intended to press on into Saudi Arabia is debated, but the Saudis definitely thought it was possible, which is one reason they allowed American troops on their soil.

 

I could go on, with all of the arms shipments,intelligence sharing , naval bases, etc., but you get the point.

 

I could also add, by the way that lots of this glorious city-building was done by foreign workers, foreign construction firms, foreign architects, etc. Heck, some financial districts even use English law for contracts and disputes because indigenous law and custom won’t attract capital. But I don’t want to be too ungracious about all of this self-sufficiency.

 

These countries have lived—thrived—with the aid and protection of the United States. I have plenty of criticisms of this arrangement, but I also think it’s been defensible for the most part (albeit punctuated with many indefensible moments).

 

But who cares what I think? What’s weird is that Trump—the “restrainer,” “non-interventionist,” enemy of forever wars and foreign entanglements—has pretty much promised to keep that arrangement going during his presidency. As Jim Geraghty beat me to pointing out, Trump said in Qatar:

 

We are going to protect this country. And it’s [a] very special place, with a special royal family. The head of the royal family is two heads of the royal family, really, if you think. Great. It’s great people, and they’re going to be protected by the United States of America.

 

And:

 

Our relationship now is very strong with Saudi Arabia. Nobody’s coming, nobody’s going to be bothering that relationship. Nobody would be able to break that relationship, because of my relationship with the Crown Prince and the family.

 

So just to put a fine point on it: These countries did all this awesome stuff without our help, but now that Trump’s on the scene we’ll protect these little guys, because … why? I gather the answer to that question is we’re doing “deals.” I’m fine with deals.

 

But I have some questions, both for Trump and his various fans: Why the double standard? Which double standard? you ask. Well, all the double standards.

 

Let’s start with the obvious: Why is our military alliance with Europe or our security guarantees for Japan, Australia, etc., proof that we’re getting “ripped off,” but our security guarantees for Saudi Arabia and Qatar (or at least for their royal families) are awesome?

 

Why is a military alliance that has never compelled us to fight for Europe but that did compel Europe to fight for us (after 9/11) considered an entangling alliance we don’t need, but an entangling alliance in the Middle East is suddenly such a good thing? I mean, I could have sworn J.D. Vance and that crowd wanted us to be less involved in the Middle East. I mean Vance says, “It’s not good for Europe to be the permanent security vassal of the United States.” Okay, but why is it good for the Saudis? Or us? 

 

Here’s a question for the various ethno-nationalist types. You know, the ones who really like to lean into the fact that America is a white, Christian, or European nation with a distinct white, Christian, or European culture—particularly the dudes who loved Trump’s first foray into banning Muslims and  his newfound sympathies for refugees if they’re white people from South Africa. Why are you okay with this? Seriously. What good is it having a nativist nationalist superhero as president if he can be bought with a plane and some ass-kissing?

 

Canada vs. Saudi Arabia.

 

I’m sure you can come up with more questions along these lines. But let’s try to bring this thing—again, not my plane—in for a landing.

 

One answer to these and related questions is the same as it was for FDR: oil. The Gulf states sell oil, a lot of it. But they don’t sell that much to us. You know who does? Canada—you know that Western, mostly Christian, mostly European, mostly English-speaking, entirely democratic, peaceful neighbor to the north? You know the one that is so much like us that the president wants to make it part of America? Right. That one.

 

Trump treats that country like crap. He fawns on Arab Muslim despots—some with a long track record of funding terrorists—but heaps ridicule and scorn on our northern neighbors. (Note: I’m not trying to sound racist, anti-Arab, or anti-Islamic by harping on this stuff. I’m just trying to get the attention of those looking the other way.)

 

Well, we buy 10 times more oil from Canada than from Saudi Arabia. Canada has been selling us more oil than the Saudis since 2004. Even better, it sells us oil at a discount because of our integrated infrastructure. As I first learned from Dominic Pino in National Review, if you took our oil imports out of the equation, we’d have a trade surplus with Canada. Then again, we had a trade surplus with the U.K. and Trump still thought they were playing us for suckers.

 

It’s kind of funny. Canada is one of our oldest and most reliable allies. It’s literally a neighbor. The geopolitical and national security risks and costs of importing oil from Canada are as close to zero as possible. No need to worry about Iranians or Iranian proxies bombing the supply lines. The need to protect Canada hasn’t pulled us into any “forever wars.” Our petrodollars haven’t funded any Canadian madrasas or provided slush funds for Canuck terrorists. And yet Trump says of Canada, “We don’t need their oil and gas.” Heck, he says over and over that we don’t need anything from Canada—except all of Canada as a state.

 

But when it comes to Saudi Arabia, everything is on the table because we’re making deals, man.

 

Which brings me to the new oil: Deals! Trump loves deals. Again, that’s fine. He exaggerates the topline numbers and ridiculously takes press releases as firm commitments. But whatevs, man, he’s making it rain Benjamins on America. It’s the direct investment in America from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, etc., that justifies our anti-forever war president giving his personal assurance we’ll protect our friends in Quagmire Land, right?

 

Okay, except you know who invests far, far, far more in America than the Saudis and all their neighbors combined?  Canada and Europe.

 

And that’s the sticky wicket. That investment is the product of what came before Trump. He likes deals he can take credit for. Deals that were made before he showed up have to be stupid because everyone in charge before him was stupid.

 

And that’s at least one of the real reasons he prefers undemocratic, authoritarian countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. He can make deals with a handshake and take all the credit. Deals between democracies take time, involve legislators and lawyers, and even voters. Who’s got time for all of that noise?  Not Donald Trump and not just when it comes to trade deals.