Nov. 5 (UPI) — President Donald Trump wants Saudi Arabia’s state-owned Aramco listed on the New York Stock Exchange as an initial public offering.
“Would very much appreciate Saudi Arabia doing their IPO of Aramco with the New York Stock Exchange. Important to the United States!” Trump posted on Twitter on Saturday morning from Hawaii, where he stopped before his tour of Asia.
The tweet came shortly after he posted the stock market broke a record Friday.
Aramco, one of the largest companies in the world, expects to go public sometime in 2018 but hasn’t disclosed where, according to The Washington Post. Saudi officials hope to raise $100 billion by selling just 5 percent of the company with a $2 trillion valuation.
Aramco’s oil production, which is more than 10 million barrels of oil per day, is about 12 percent of the world’s supply.
Several foreign oil companies are represented on U.S. stock exchanges, including BP, Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina, among others, according to the Natural Resource Governance Institute. Firms also are on stock exchanges in London, Toronto, Amsterdam, Brazil and Hong Kong.
“At a time when the Saudis are looking for the U.S. to get tougher on Iran, the Saudi-Russian relationship is warming, the Saudis are trying to attract international private capital, and the Chinese are rumored to be considering taking a piece of Aramco, Trump’s personal plea to list in N.Y. raises the diplomatic stakes of Aramco’s decision,” Jason Bordoff, director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a former senior oil official in the Obama administration, told Bloomberg.
In May, Trump announced a $110 billion defense deal with Saudi Arabia to sell U.S.-made naval vessels, air defense systems and helicopters.
Trump’s focus on Saudi Arabia comes as Trump embarks on his first trip to Asia as president.
On Friday, Trump and first lady Melania Trump were greeted with leis after Air Force One landed in Honolulu after a 10-hour flight from Washington, D.C. They were met by Hawaii Gov. David Ige and Adm. Harry Harris, head of U.S. Pacific Command, along with military and civilian supporters.
Trump had a briefing from Pacific Command.
The president and first lady then visited the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, where they placed a wreath of white flowers at a wall with the names of 1,177 service members killed in the Pearl Harbor attack by Japan on Dec. 7, 1941. Trump did not speak during his visit to the memorial, the first time he’s been there.
Supportive residents mainly were along the motorcade’s route.
Several hundred protesters showed up at the Hawaii State Capitol.
Protesters beat drums and cheered former President Barack Obama, who was born in the state.
A flyer was distributed around the island that read “Hawaii 3, Trump 0” and “Wish you weren’t here.” The score refers to the state’s judicial challenges of the president’s travel ban.
After one day in Hawaii, Trump will stop in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Before leaving Washington, he said he planned to extend his 12-day trip by one day to attend the East Asia Summit in the Philippines.
