Oil is half the value of Saudi Arabia. The other half is US support. Since WWII the deal has never changed: cheap oil in exchange of military support.
Saudi deals are effectively backed by US.
And a country like Saudi, whose fortune solely depends on exports, can't bend the rules of trade and contract too much. It is very easy to sanction.
Kashoggi is what killed the project MbS had with this money (the futuristic city NEOM, read about it, that was interesting). MbS had spent a lot of resources painting himself as a progressive reformist, ready to make KSA evolve out of the charia law.
That killing put him back down the scale of dictators. He admit it made his project lose at least 10 years and that it was unsellable right now.
Saudi deals are effectively backed by US.
And a country like Saudi, whose fortune solely depends on exports, can't bend the rules of trade and contract too much. It is very easy to sanction.
Kashoggi is what killed the project MbS had with this money (the futuristic city NEOM, read about it, that was interesting). MbS had spent a lot of resources painting himself as a progressive reformist, ready to make KSA evolve out of the charia law.
That killing put him back down the scale of dictators. He admit it made his project lose at least 10 years and that it was unsellable right now.