Top bankster, JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon, and Ford chairman Bill Ford have become the latest executives to pull out of Saudi Arabia’s “Davos in the Desert” conference in the wake of the disappearance/murder(?) of Washington Post columnist Jamal Kashoggi.
“Jamie will not be attending the Saudi event,” a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase said on Sunday night. A Ford spokesperson said: “Due to scheduling, Mr Ford’s trip to the region has been canceled.”
Dimon and Ford now follow Sir Richard Branson, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim and Uber chief Dara Khosrowshahi who have canceled plans to attend The Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh that was organised by the Saudi Public Investment Fund and is closely associated with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is suspected of ordering a 15-man hit team to take Kashoggi out at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Turkey.
To date, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has not changed his plans to attend the event.
In a statement released after President Trump warned that Saudi Arabia would face “ severe punishment” if the government had killed Khashoggi, the Saudi government said that “if it receives any action, it will respond with greater action”.
“The kingdom affirms its total rejection of any threats and attempts to undermine it, whether by threatening to impose economic sanctions, using political pressures, or repeating false accusations,” the Saudi state news agency said. “The kingdom's economy has an influential and vital role in the global economy”.
Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil producer.
Oil futures jumped almost 2 per cent to nearly $82 a barrel in response to the Saudi threat as the market reopened on Sunday.
The threats of retaliation from the West also sent the Saudi stock market plunging as much as 7 percent on Sunday, the first day of the business week in the Kingdom.
-RW
(Sources: FT, NYT)
I like that a clear signal is sent to these thugs.
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