US-Saudi 'Critical Minerals' Deal: Just What the Human Rights Doctor Ordered
The article lauds a Nevada-based producer partnering with Saudi Arabia to refine critical minerals, supposedly shoring up both nations' industrial and defense sectors. What it conveniently sidesteps is the uncomfortable reality that one of these 'allies' is a brutal authoritarian regime. This latest pact comes just weeks after the Public Investment Fund, controlled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman, pledged $175 billion towards Saudi Arabia's 'industrial transformation'—a transformation often built on the backs of migrant workers facing egregious human rights abuses, as documented by organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. We're told this strengthens 'supply chains' and 'national security,' but whose national security, exactly? The same Saudi government
responsible for Jamal Khashoggi's murder, the devastating war in Yemen, and mass executions. These are the partners the US is banking on for its 'critical minerals.' One might wonder how many more arms deals, or in this case, critical mineral partnerships, it takes to wash away the bloodstains from the kingdom's hands. Perhaps the real 'critical mineral' is the strategic amnesia required to
conduct such business.