ELECTION/MEDIA/SAUDI ARABIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The three-way test of wills over Saudi Arabia’s murder of an exiled journalist has started to play out in oil markets. Each day, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan maintains his drip feed of grisly details of Jamal Khashoggi’s killing in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Each day, a reluctant President Donald Trump is forced to respond to a new revelation. The affair has betrayed a yet unseen presidential aptitude for restraint. Meanwhile, the Saudis’ initially combative tone has been quietly replaced with a more deferential stance. They have opened the valves on their idled oil production, exactly as Trump has demanded in his tweets. Saudi oil minister Khalid al-Falih has talked down oil prices with unusually forthright public statements, saying the kingdom will make sure global demand is met, no matter what. For Trump and his embattled Republican allies in the U.S. midterm elections, the change in Saudi behavior is welcome. And as long as Trump soft-pedals the Khashoggi affair, it seems the Saudis are willing to cooperate with the American president’s oil market wishes.”
–Jim Krane and BillArnold, ” Is Saudi Arabia Helping Trump in the Midterms?,” Politico, October 24, 2018