Brought into context with the otherwise inexplicable tolerance for that regime's egregious human rights abuses, and the "delicateness" with which it was handled during the 9/11 investigations (extended the fact that its key people were allowed to slip out of the country in the immediate aftermath, despite a nation-wide travel ban on everyone else) -- it all starts to make sense.
Not in any tinfoil kind of way. But in a more banal, mundane, "Why do we keep kissing this bloodthirsty, homophobic, misogynist and utterly decrepit regime's ass, for decade after decade?" kind of way.
The U.S. started releasing data on foreign ownership of Treasuries in 1974. Since then, the Treasury’s policy had been to not disclose Saudi holdings, and it grouped them instead with those of 14 other mostly OPEC nations, including Kuwait, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates, Bloomberg reported in January. The group held $281 billion as of February, down from a record of $298.4 billion in July.
For more than a hundred other countries, from China to the Vatican, the Treasury had provided a detailed monthly breakdown of how much U.S. debt each owns. The figures for March are scheduled for release at 4 p.m. New York time Monday.
The special arrangement was a product of the 1973 oil shock following the Arab embargo. It’s among concessions that U.S. administrations made over the years to maintain America’s strategic relationship with the Saudi royal family and access to the kingdom’s oil reserves.