The Saudi Arabian government isn’t joking with its threat to sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets in the country if the U.S. Congress should pass a suspicious bill aimed at holding the kingdom responsible for terrorism.
Saudi Arabia has vehemently denied playing any role in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Reports from New York Times said on Friday that Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir last month informed the U.S. legislators that “Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in Treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts.”
The bill, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year, would take away immunity from foreign governments in cases “arising from a terrorist attack that kills an American on American soil.”
According to the report, “the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon.”
In order to forestall any economic or political tensions which might arise from passing the said bill, President Obama’s leadership administration had lobbied the U.S. Congress to halt or completely ignore the bill.
Briefing from the U.S. State Department Representative John Kirby said it stood “firmly with the victims of these acts of violence and their loved ones.
“We remain committed to bringing to justice terrorists and those who use terrorism to advance their depraved ideology.”
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