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00:00And you would, of course, have been working in the White House during the time when President Trump was weighing up where to go on the first foreign trip of his first administration.
00:10Just remind us, looking back to 2017, what was the rationale? Why did he choose to go to Saudi Arabia, do you think?
00:15Well, I think there were two rationales. One, it was the norm for an American president to visit Canada first in their in their administration.
00:25That generally was the first foreign trip. I believe that George Bush, President Bush, then went to Mexico after.
00:33The president wanted to make a different splash. And his trip involved Saudi Arabia.
00:39It involved it ended up going to the Vatican at the very tail end of the trip.
00:43But he wanted to visit a region that was very important to what his vision was of, you know, spreading the word that America was a open for business.
00:51But B, that there were conflicts that needed to be that needed to be resolved.
00:57And I think looking outside the box, Saudi Arabia made a very logical choice for him to go as his first state visit.