President Trump announced during a meeting with Iraq’s Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi that oil deals are in the works.
“They have tremendous oil reserves. They have tremendous potential wealth, and they have tremendous wealth, not only potential,” he said. “We’re going to have a long-term relationship with a man that will be a great leader. You mark my words. I knew what I was doing.”
“Because of their oil, and we’re going to be doing a lot of deals,” Trump said, adding, “We’re going to create a lot of jobs for both countries, and we’re going to be taking out a lot of oil.”
Detailing possible oil deals with Iraq, President Trump further explained, “The oil companies are all going in now and they’re doing partnerships with Iraq, and they’re getting along very well. The relationship is a whole big relationship where we don’t need the military there…We’re there to protect them if need be, but we don’t think that’s going to be necessary.”
“Iran was a big burden on Iraq, because they were the bully of the Middle East, as you know, but they’re not going to have that problem anymore,” he noted, saying Iran has been “destabilized.”
At the end of May, President Trump announced that U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack would take on expanded duties as Special Presidential Envoy to both Syria and Iraq as the United States “advance[s] our strategic cooperation with the Governments of Syria and Iraq” and the nation’s “relationship with them continues to grow.”
