- “Davos in the Desert” loses high-profile attendees over Khashoggi death
American businesses’ response to the horrific news about the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi made headlines last week.
Khashoggi’s disappearance after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 lead several company executives to pull out from the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference, which is scheduled to take place in Riyadh from Oct. 23-25.
JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Blackrock CEO Larry Fink, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Viacom CEO Bob Bakish Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene were among the high-profile executives announcing their withdrawal from the conference.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde and World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim also dropped out of the conference that was labeled “Davos In the Desert” with its successful inaugural last year.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin joined the growing group of FII withdrawals on Thursday.
'Just met with @realDonaldTrump and @SecPompeo and we have decided, I will not be participating in the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia,' he tweeted.
Finance ministers from France and the Netherlands had previously announced their decision not to attend the conference.
In addition, The New York Times, CNN, CNBC, The Financial Times, Huffington Post and Bloomberg pulled out of the conference. Fox Business, the last remaining American media sponsor, also canceled its sponsorship and participation because of the growing outrage in the wake of revelations that Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
- U.S. Congress demands sanctions on Saudis
Another big repercussion of the disappearance of Khashoggi, an outspoken critic of the Saudi regime, was the bipartisan demand for sanctions on Riyadh.
A group of 11 Democratic and 11 Republican senators of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent a letter to the White House asking for an investigation of the events and a determination of whether to impose sanctions on Saudi officials.
The letter, which was drafted under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, requires President Donald Trump’s decision within 120 days on whether to impose sanctions as a result of Khashoggi’s murder.
U.S.-Saudi relations will be tested in the upcoming days as pressure on the Trump administration grows as explanations so far from Riyadh have failed to satisfy members of Congress.
-New week: GDP and Beige Book
The first estimates for the third quarter GDP, scheduled for release on Friday, caps off the economic agenda of the new week.
Investors will closely follow the Chicago Fed National Activity Index on Monday as a preview of the GDP figures. The Beige Book of the Federal Reserve, which will be published on Wednesday, is on the watch list for followers of central banks.
Developments regarding Khashoggi’s murder and possible sanctions on Riyadh are among the potential market movers this week.