In an Oct. 3 meeting, the Saudi Cabinet said that the United States passing the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) — which allows families of the 9/11 victims to sue countries of the perpetrators of the attacks — is of great concern to the international community, as international relations are based on the principle of equality and sovereign immunity. It added that a weakened sovereign immunity would negatively affect all countries, including the United States.
On Oct. 20, US Secretary of State John Kerry said after his meeting with his Saudi counterpart, Adel al-Jubeir, in Washington, “We discussed ways to try to fix this in a way that respects and honors the needs and rights of victims of 9/11, but at the same time does not expose American troops and American partners and American individuals who may be involved in another country to the potential of a lawsuit for those activities.”
The Saudi government’s statement against JASTA, which was passed on Sept. 28, coincided with Riyadh’s economic measures, which include negotiations with Western financial institutions to sell US Treasury bonds estimated in March to be worth up to $116 billion. Although Riyadh is yet to determine the size of the US treasury bonds expected to be sold, there is talk within economic circles inside and outside Saudi Arabia that a maximum of nearly $20 billion in Treasury bonds will be sold. This would mean that Riyadh will not go too far in its reaction to JASTA, at least at this stage, and will content itself with the sale of a part of its portfolio in US Treasury bonds. This would be a warning message delivered to Washington, on the one hand, and an attempt to reduce the Saudi public debt, which reached $73 billion in August, on the other.
Furthermore, Riyadh signed an agreement with Beijing that came into force Sept. 26, under which commercial transactions between Saudi Arabia and China, which amount to $49 billion annually, shall be made according to a direct exchange system between the Chinese yuan and the Saudi Arabia riyal, without having to use the US dollar as intermediary currency. The agreement includes 1.1 million barrels of oil per day to be imported from Riyadh to Beijing.
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