Ever since Franklin Delano Roosevelt made his first presidential visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1945, the Middle Eastern kingdom’s relationship with the United States has always been a double-edged sword. For the last few decades, Saudi Arabia has been viewed as an attractive ally due to its vast oil reserves and willingness to support U.S. interventions in the Middle East. At the same time, however, the World Economic Forum ranked the nation as one of the worst places in the world for women, while Reporters Without Borders ranked Saudi Arabia 169 out of 180 nations in their press freedom index, making it a real test of America’s commitment to human rights and democracy.

In the last two weeks, Saudi Arabia has been thrust into the spotlight after the disappearance and alleged murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. According to CNN, anonymous officials in the Turkish government allege that Turkey has audio and visual evidence that Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate by high ranking Saudi officials, though no evidence has been made public or confirmed by anyone else. The Saudis have denied any involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance, but observers have cast doubt on those claims, especially since Khashoggi was a well known critic of the Saudi government, particularly of Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman’s decision to intervene in the Yemeni Civil War in 2015.

Speaking on Boston Public Radio this morning, WGBH news analyst and CEO of the GroundTruth Project Charlie Sennott, who worked with Khashoggi in the past, remembered him as someone who was dedicated to exposing the truth in a nation that worked heavily to censor it.

“Jamal was the person who you went to see when you were in Saudi Arabia as a foreign correspondent, visiting that incredibly opaque, impossible to reach place,” Sennott said. “No one took more risks than [Khashoggi] did in terms of plumbing the depths of the place, challenging its leadership, its authority, and really going after the kingdom and its power, and he would really challenge them at every turn.”

This morning while en route to Florida, Trump told reporters that King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud assured him the kingdom had no involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance, and dubiously said he thought it could be the work of “rogue killers,” a theory that is also being pushed by a source close to the Saudi intelligence establishment according to The New York Times.

Sennott, however, says that Trump seems less concerned about Khashoggi’s disappearance than he is with the fate of a $110 billion arms deal he negotiated with Saudi Arabia last year, which is why he’s been hesitant to take a hard line against the royal family’s potential role in the disappearance.

“This is where Trump’s foreign policy, which is transactional in nature, is truly put to the test. [Is Trump] saying that the American ideals in which we tell thugs around the world, ‘you can’t do extrajudicial killings--particularly inside of an embassy in an allied country’s home in Istanbul — that [he] can’t do that?” Sennott said. “If we can’t be strong enough to do that, because we want to close a weapons deal, then the cynicism of who we are as a country really creeps in. We’re better than that.”

When pushed by reporters on what he would do if it was revealed Saudi Arabia had indeed murdered Khashoggi, Trump reneged and said there would be a “severe punishment,” but also said he would not risk the arms deal or impose sanctions on the nation, making it unclear what kind of punishment he would levy. Sennott says it is Trump’s posturing on issues like Khashoggi’s disappearance, and general attitude towards the press in general that is partially to blame for the recent rise in authoritarian crackdowns on journalism around the world.

“We have a President of the United States who has rhetoric that is so against [journalists] that you can’t help but wonder if the world isn’t listening to that, and people like [Filipino President Rodrigo] Duterte and Putin, and now absolutely Saudi Arabia seems to have heard the message ‘hey, it’s open season. If we have critics we can take them out,’” Sennott said. “ I know that’s not the intention President Trump has when he says 'journalists are the enemy of the people.' He means it from his own Twitter hyperbole that he just wants to take that and sort of use it as a populist argument, but that’s heard around the world. And this is absolutely a reason we’re seeing big, intense crackdown on journalism, on freedom of expression, on anyone who would dare criticize some of these autocratic regimes that Trump has shown himself to be so willing to be favorable to.”