more money to the American government than they currently do, but he remains silent on how the Saudis’ need to eventually transition away from oil can be exploited by a new U.S. foreign policy. It is an open question that the first major recruit to Trump’s national security team, Michael Flynn, will shortly be able to assist him in answering—as Flynn by June 2015 is well aware that Saudi Arabia and its neighbor the United Arab Emirates are looking to move to nuclear power (see chapter 4).
Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that in his announcement speech the chief clue Trump provides with respect to his agenda on Middle Eastern energy issues is his somewhat opaque interest in nuclear energy. “Even our nuclear arsenal doesn’t work,” opines Trump, later adding, “We’ve got nuclear weapons that are obsolete.”76 Though the nuclear deal Obama has negotiated with the Iranians has by June 2015, per international inspectors, been successful at halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Trump echoes on June 16 the strongly held belief of the Saudis, Emiratis, and Israelis that Obama’s negotiations will not “stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons”—implying that some more dramatic action will have to be taken to ensure an Iranian nuclear weapon never tilts the balance of power in the Middle East against America’s regional allies.77
* * *
Within three weeks of Trump’s announcement of his candidacy, his friend Thomas Barrack—the billionaire real estate investor who has called Trump “one of [his] oldest friends”—is telling associates at a business lunch on the French Riviera that he believes Trump will become president of the United States.78 At the time, Trump is facing off against at least sixteen Republicans who have declared their candidacies or else formed exploratory committees to consider a presidential run. Barrack’s lunch mates consequently scoff at his prediction. In the months to come, however, Barrack will make Trump winning the 2016 presidential election his “obsession,” according to Bloomberg, going so far as to “all but disappear[] from the company he’d founded in 1991 [Colony Capital] and built into one of the world’s highest-profile real estate firms.”79 His commitment to a Trump election victory is so unwavering that Trump will eventually name Barrack, post-election, his inaugural committee chairman—even as Barrack also regularly volunteers his New York City office for “sensitive” meetings of the presidential transition team (PTT) to avoid tipping off the many media outlets assembled in the Trump Tower lobby as to whom the PTT is meeting.80 Between his early support for Trump and his chairmanship of Trump’s inauguration, Barrack will also “help[] install [Paul Manafort] as head of Trump’s campaign,” engage in regular “strategy calls” with Trump, and initiate contact between Trump’s campaign and the United Arab Emirates (see chapter 4).81
During the same month Barrack is in the French Riviera discussing Trump’s candidacy with wealthy friends, a very wealthy man and his son arrive in the French Riviera for a holiday: King Salman and MBS, joined by an entourage of more than a thousand aides, advisers, assistants, and hangers-on.82 While in France, the young prince—who, as part of coming into his own as a royal power broker, has imposed draconian austerity measures on the Saudi government—spots and allegedly impulse-buys a 440-foot yacht owned by Yuri Shefler, a fugitive Russian vodka tycoon who is a longtime enemy of Vladimir Putin.83 MBS purchases the yacht for approximately $550 million, demanding that the Russian oligarch vacate the boat—at least one media outlet will say “kicking [him] off” it—on the day of the purchase.84 The power play is likely to please Putin, whom Shefler has “publicly battled for years” and began attacking in the press in 2014 for the Russian president’s annexation of Crimea, opining at the time that “it’s terrible when a country captures a neighbor’s territory. I feel sorry for the Crimean people.… [T]here are no laws in Russia. There is only one law in Russia, and it’s called ‘Putin.’ Only one justice, called ‘Putin.’”85
As Thomas Barrack is becoming deeply invested in Trump’s campaign, so too is another Republican billionaire: Erik Prince. Not long after Trump’s June 2015 announcement of his presidential candidacy, Prince—a longtime employee of MBZ—begins secretly advising the Trump campaign on foreign policy, despite never being named to any of Trump’s official foreign policy or national security teams and later telling Congress under oath that he had no role, official or unofficial, on the Trump campaign or Trump transition team. As to the latter claim, the truth, as Bloomberg will report in April 2017, is that