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Daimler Trucks will lay off 170 at Western Star factory in Portland The Oregonian/Oregon Live / June 6, 2016 Daimler Trucks North America said Monday it will lay off 1,240 workers in the U.S. and Mexico – including 170 at its Western Star factory on Swan Island – amid a downturn in demand for long-haul trucks. The Portland factory will continue to employ 570 and Daimler said it expects to recall laid-off workers once demand improves. It gave no indication, though, of when that will be. The layoffs fall hardest at two sites in North Carolina, where the company is eliminating 800 jobs. Daimler will lay off another 270 in Mexico. Daimler said it forecasts a 15 percent decrease in certain classes of trucks this year after selling 425,000 units in 2015. But it said the company's market share remains strong, growing from 39.4 percent last year to 41.9 percent this year. Oregon's job market is the strongest it's been in years, with the statewide unemployment rate at 4.5 percent. There are weak spots, though. For example, manufacturing jobs have recovered rapidly in the past few years but haven't overcome the losses sustained in the Great Recession. And Intel laid off 784 people at its sites in Washington County in April in one of the biggest single rounds of job cuts in state history. It will eliminate several hundred more Oregon jobs over the next year through buyouts, early retirement offers and project cancellations. Daimler Trucks opened a new, $150 million North American headquarters on Swan Island in April. The company received nearly $20 million in public support for the project, with incentives tied to continued expansion at corporate office. Those offices are separate from the factory where Monday's layoffs are taking place. Employment at Daimler's Western Star plant has been volatile in recent years, rising and falling along with the truck market. Scheduled at one point to close in 2010, Daimler kept it open and in 2011 announced a major expansion. Last year, the company agreed to pay $2.4 million to settle accusations of racial discrimination and sexual harassment at the site.

Freightliner laying off 800 workers in North Carolina Associated Press / June 6, 2016 Freightliner says it will lay off about 800 workers in Gaston County as part of an international reduction in workforce. David Giroux with Freightliner's parent company, Daimler Trucks North America told local media outlets that about 600 workers are being laid off at the plant in Mount Holly on July 1. The company will let about 200 workers go at a parts and logistics plant in Gastonia on June 24. Giroux said the layoffs should be temporary. Daimler expects a 15 percent drop in sales of medium- and heavy-duty trucks, which are made in Mount Holly. Mount Holly City Manager Danny Jackson said he's disappointed by the decision. The vice president of the Mount Holly chapter of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union would not talk about the layoffs.

Heavy Truck Orders Tumbled 31% in May The Wall Street Journal / June 3, 2016 Weak freight demand has trucking companies trimming fleets, vehicle factories laying off workers Trucking companies ordered fewer new big rigs in May than they did a year ago, reflecting concerns that freight volumes will stay low heading into the peak shipping season. The industry ordered 14,300 Class 8 trucks, the type used on long-haul routes, extending a deep slowdown this year. The figure was down 31% from the same month in 2015, though up more than 4% from April. The trucking industry went on a vehicle buying binge in 2014 and 2015, and many companies are now struggling to find enough freight to fill their expanded fleets. Most large trucking companies have said they will sharply reduce purchases of new trucks until the market shows signs of improvement. Orders typically see a lull in May, but were still well below the 18,000 to 19,000 new vehicles per month needed just to replace aging and damaged trucks, analysts said. A turning point may be some time off, analysts say. Freight volumes typically pick up in late summer, as stores restock for back-to-school and holiday shopping seasons. However, retailers are holding onto historically high inventories, meaning they need to buy fewer goods to keep shelves full and replenish warehouse stocks. For the trucking industry, that means fewer trips between ports and distribution centers, or between warehouses and stores. “That freight’s already been delivered,” said one analyst. “Until consumers and businesses get out there and drive inventories down, we don’t see a reversal or improvement in the situation.” Old Dominion Freight Line Inc., one of the largest less-than-truckload carriers—in which trucks carry shipments for several customers, typically retail stores—said this week that shipments inched up 0.2% in May compared with a year earlier, while tons moved per day fell by 1%. Chief Executive David Congdon described the market as “challenging.” Saia Inc., another LTL carrier, said shipments fell 3.3% in May from a year earlier, with tonnage down 4.9%. Since truck orders dived last fall, truck manufacturers have laid off thousands of workers and announced production cutbacks. In late May, Volvo AB said it would lay off workers at its Dublin, Virginia plant in late May, on top of job losses at the same facility announced in December. Even so, dealers have struggled to move large inventories of unsold trucks, another factor depressing new orders. “Dealer inventories of Class 8 trucks remains bloated, so the only truck orders now are mainly for replacement purposes,” said Don Ake, vice president of commercial vehicles at FTR Research, which published a similar estimate of big rig orders. He said he expected more production shutdowns over the summer.

Renault Trucks Press Release / June 6, 2016 The Renault Trucks OptiTrack range is being extended. This traction system, which features hydraulic motors in the front wheels, gives the vehicle temporary extra pulling power. Available on the Renault Trucks C, it can now equip 8x4 and 8x2*6 configurations. OptiTrack is a technology that Renault Trucks has been developing since 2009 designed to increase a vehicle’s pulling power while still controlling fuel consumption and maintaining a high payload. Now available on the Renault Trucks C for 8x4 (with the DTI 11 and 13 engines) and 8x2*6 (with a DTI 11 engine) configurations, OptiTrack gives a vehicle additional temporary pulling power via two hydraulic motors in the wheel hubs of the second front axle. This system means that a vehicle can benefit from all-wheel drive on demand for a short period without being subject to the drawbacks of a “conventional” all-wheel drive vehicle, particularly when it comes to fuel consumption, loading height, maintenance costs and additional weight. Newly available for two additional configurations, the OptiTrack offering now covers most of the configurations used in the building sector: 4x2, 6x4, 6x2*4, 8x2*6 and 8x4 (left hand drive only). This means that whatever their field of activity, clients can now choose a vehicle with greater mobility, a higher payload and better consumption when they do not constantly require “all-wheel drive” capability. Outstanding pulling power from 0 kph Simply by pressing a button on the dashboard, the driver can engage or disengage the system in forward or reverse mode. OptiTrack is operational from 0kph and automatically disconnects once vehicle speed reaches 25 kph. The system connects via an engine rear PTO, thereby leaving PTOs on the gearbox fully available. OptiTrack is associated with the Optidriver manual automated gearbox, supplied as standard on all Renault Trucks vehicles. Finally, for optimal safety, OptiTrack is now compatible with the Voith hydraulic retarder. Optimised payload The Renault Trucks C OptiTrack can get out of difficult situations while maintaining a payload higher than that of an all-wheel drive vehicle (a difference of 600 kg). Compared with the Euro 5 range, Renault Trucks has reduced the system’s weight by 90 kg. Thanks to an optimised unladen weight, vehicles in the Renault Trucks C range offer an outstanding payload capacity. Priority given to comfort, safety and productivity By choosing an OptiTrack vehicle, hauliers improve their vehicle’s productivity: its drivers’ missions are more secure, irrespective of weather conditions, and optimise the vehicle’s fuel consumption. Great attention is also paid to driver comfort. First of all, the system’s simplicity allows the driver to get out of a difficult situation perfectly safely. Comfort is also provided by the low chassis height compared with an all wheel drive vehicle, making cab access easier and rigs more stable. With the new OptiTrack offering on the Renault Trucks C, now available with the DTI 13 engine, the Optidriver manual automated gearbox and the Voith retarder, Renault Trucks offers its customers - particularly in mountainous areas - the perfect tool for improving their productivity. Photo gallery - http://corporate.renault-trucks.com/en/press-releases/2016_06_06_renault_trucks_extends_its_optitrack_range.html Related reading - http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/39998-volvo-unveils-automatic-all-wheel-drive-truck-tech/?hl=optitrack#entry289755 .

Today’s Trucking / June 6, 2016 WASHINGTON, DC – Passengers in truck cabs will be required to wear seatbelts when traveling U.S. highways, effective Aug. 8. “Seat belts save lives – period,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said when unveiling the rules. “Whether you’re a driver or passenger, in a personal vehicle or large truck, the simple act of wearing a safety belt significantly reduces the risk of fatality in a crash.” They have been slow to use such belts in the past. Research by the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) concluded in 2014 that 73% of truck passengers use seatbelts, compared to 84% of commercial drivers. The drivers are already required to wear the restraints. The FMCSA is still studying the use of sleeper berth restraints, and how they can affect sleep. In 2014, 37 truck passengers were killed in roadside crashes, and almost one-third of those were ejected from the cab, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says. “Using a seat belt is one of the safest, easiest and smartest choices drivers and passengers can make before starting out on any road trip,” said Scott Darling, FMCSA’s acting administrator. “This rule further protects large truck occupants and will undoubtedly save more lives. For a copy of the final rule, see https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2016-13099.pdf.

Daimler Trucks to Cut 1,240 Jobs Heavy Duty Trucking / June 6, 2016 DTNA has announced it will lay off about 1,240 workers across its North American production facilities in response to sustained reductions in truck orders. Calling it a workforce adjustment, DTNA will lay off workers at its Mount Holly, N.C., Gastonia, N.C., Portland, Ore., and Santiago, Mexico, facilities. There are currently no plans for reductions at the company’s facilities in Cleveland, N.C., and Saltillo, Mexico. The company has seen a 15% decrease in Class 6-8 retail sales compared with last year’s robust numbers. However, it expects the low orders and diminished build rate to be temporary. The workers to be laid off as part of this reduction will have first rights to be recalled when production is able to sustain a higher build rate, according to DTNA. The last day of work at the Portland and Mount Holly facilities for laid-off workers will be July 1; the last day at the Gastonia Facility will be June 24; and the last day at the Santiago plant will be June 29. The workforce reduction will impact approximately 600 workers at the Mount Holly facility; 270 workers at the Santiago facility; 200 workers at the Gastonia components and logistics facility, and 170 workers at the Western Star manufacturing facility in Portland.

Transport Topics / June 6, 2016 Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) announced plans June 6 to reduce its North American manufacturing workforce by about 1,240 positions. “DTNA’s workforce adjustments are in response to a sustained reduction in orders and a diminished build rate and are expected to be temporary,” the company said. The Portland, Oregon-based U.S. subsidiary of Germany’s Daimler AG said the reductions include about 600 workers at its facility in Mount Holly, North Carolina; 270 workers in Santiago, Mexico; 200 at its components and logistics facility in Gastonia, North Carolina; and 170 workers at the Western Star plant in Portland. DTNA also said there no plans currently to reduce the workforce at facilities in Cleveland, North Carolina, or Saltillo, Mexico. Last month, Daimler said it was lowering its outlook for overall North America Classes 6-8 truck sales this year by 15% compared with 2015, down from an earlier forecast of a 10% decline. Last year, Classes 6-8 sales were about 425,000. “These workforce adjustments are expected to be temporary and workers will have first rights to be recalled when production is able to sustain a higher build rate,” the company said. . Related reading: http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/45321-daimler-cuts-sales-forecast-as-class-8-orders-stall/#comment-334193 http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/43388-freightliner-to-cut-almost-1000-jobs-at-cleveland-nc-truck-plant/#comment-318678 http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/42262-dtna-forecasts-strong-truck-sales-next-year/#comment-30812 http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/41818-dtna-sees-strong-truck-sales-extending-through-2016/#comment-303980

KamAZ Trucks Press Release / June 3, 2016 Almost 1,700 KAMAZ children will receive attend the Saulyk summer camp this year for free. According to KamAZ Deputy Director General Ushenina Alexander, the truckmaker has allocated 24 million Rubles to pay for 1,680 children’s stay at the "Saulyk" (Саулык) summer camp. .

Commercial Motor TV - sponsored by DAF Trucks / June 3, 2016 .

Ford Trucks Press Release / June 3, 2016 Ford’s Electronic Stability Program, or ESP (sometimes referred to as ESC – electronic stability control), is an active system that continuously senses the movement and speed of the vehicle and wheel spin. When the system detects a difference between the driver’s commands and the actual movement of the vehicle, the system intervenes to reduce rollover, skidding and jackknifing risk, modulating the brake force for each front, rear or trailer wheel independently and reduces the excess in throttle. . Ford Trucks and You – "Sharing the Load" At Ford Trucks, we’re serious about trucking. It's why we designed the new 2016 Cargo heavy truck range from the ground up to meet your needs and expectations. See your authorized Ford heavy truck dealer for details, or visit the global Ford heavy truck website at https://www.fordtrucks.com.tr/ .

In the video, note the Scania license-built Mack C-50 municipal transit bus at 0.08 seconds.

Scania Group Press Release / June 3, 2016 With nine vehicles and 35 locations, the Scania 2016 Road Show of Russia is a production of epic proportions. The first Scania vehicle that was exported from Sweden was actually delivered to St. Petersburg back in 1910. Covering more than 17 million square kilometres and with a population of over 140 million people, everything about Russia is big. So when Scania decided to conduct a road tour of the country to celebrate the company’s 125th anniversary, organisers knew the scale of the event had to be monumental. A 35,000 km tour The result is Scania Road Show 2016, a four-month long tour of Russia that will visit 35 dealerships stretching from Murmansk in the country’s west all the way to Vladivostok in the east. Launched in Moscow on May 16, the 35,000-kilometre (21,748 miles) tour is the longest event of its kind ever attempted by Scania, and is aimed at helping Russian truck and bus buyers gain a deeper understanding of Scania’s product range and growing service offering. Scania Russia Commercial Director Sergei Yavorsky explains, “Scania will demonstrate its famous, tried and tested technology in vehicles and engines for a range of applications. These include models recently released on the Russian market such as the LiAZ coach and the Powered by Scania diesel power plant.” The tour brings together a total of nine vehicles painted in special tour livery, including a G 400 4×2 tractor and a Griffin Series R 620 4×2 tractor with Topline cab. Specialised vehicles including a P 440 8×4 tipper, a G 480 6×6 timber truck, a 6×2 P 440 grain truck, and a P 360 6×2 refuse truck will make appearances in locations where they will be of particular interest. Scania’s offering The first leg of the journey starts at Murmansk in late May, with the road show heading north-west to Petrozavodsk and St. Petersburg. The second leg is the longest and will involve travelling through central Russia for six weeks. Scania’s vehicles and engines will be shown in the Urals, the taiga around Lake Baikal and on desolate routes between Chita and Vladivostok. Finally, the fleet will head south to locations including Krasnodar Krai and Georgievsk. .

Volvo Trucks USA Press Release / June 5, 2016 Experience the Power of Volvo: The 2017 powertrain lineup The Volvo D13 with turbo compounding was designed for customers in long-haul applications. Turbo compounding recovers wasted exhaust heat and converts it to useable mechanical energy in the form of 50 additional horsepower that is transferred back into the engine. This results in up to a 6.5 percent improvement in fuel efficiency compared with previous engine models. - See more at: http://www.volvogroup.com/group/globa.... Learn more: http://bit.ly/1pKtvXu .

Fleet Owner / June 3, 2016 Orders for medium-duty units also slowed to their lowest level since July of 2014 Class 8 orders were characterized as “subdued” in May by industry analysts, increasing just 4% over April’s order volume to 14,100 units. On top of that, medium-duty orders slowed to their lowest level since July 2014, notching just 17,100 units for May. However, despite that 14% month-over-month and 18% year-over-year decline in medium-duty orders, medium-duty order intake remained 4% higher on a year-to-date basis. Michael Baudendistel, vice president of the transportation & logistics research group at Stifel Financial Corp., noted that though Class 8 orders in May were “somewhat stronger” than expected, they are “still very weak relative to demand seen last year, down 30% year-over-year.” Stifel anticipates orders would be down slightly sequentially, as trucking conditions remain poor or continue to deteriorate, plus May is "generally somewhat weaker" for truck orders than April on a seasonal basis. “Still, the slight variance relative to our expectations in the month is not significant enough to change our Class 8 expectations for full-year 2016 or beyond,” Baudendistel said. He added that Class 5-7 medium-duty data was “somewhat weaker than expected,” with the decline from prior-year levels “somewhat of a surprise after stronger-than-anticipated demand in recent months.” Regardless, Stifel continues to believe that medium-duty production will be up slightly in the low-single digits for 2016 based on the order intake over the last few months. The Class 8 forecast, however, is not so rosy to the eyes of Don Ake, vice president research firm FTR, with order activity in May the lowest for the month since 2010 and 30% below a year ago. The past three months of Class 8 order activity annualizes to just 175,000 units, he added, with the annualized rate for the past twelve months continuing to fall, now at 231,000 units. “The soft order activity [in May for Class 8 units] was expected. The good news is that they did not fall further from April, [and] some erosion in order activity is expected during the slow summer months,” Ake explained. “But fleets do not need to order many trucks in the current environment because in most cases they have enough trucks to handle the freight. Freight demand is still sluggish due to the build-up of business inventories.” He pointed out that dealer inventories of Class 8 trucks “remain bloated, so the only truck orders now are mainly for replacement purposes, with preferred specifications.” With backlogs expected to keep falling – they are now below May 2014, Ake said – it will “be a challenge for the OEMs to schedule production through the summer,” and thus “extended vacation shutdowns” are anticipated. “Three consecutive months of decidedly lower net orders for heavy duty commercial vehicles appear more closely aligned with current activity in the manufacturing and energy sectors of the broader economy,” added another analyst. “While metrics in these segments are improving, they can best be described as not being as bad as they were previously,” he noted. “[That’s] framed by the ongoing overcapacity narrative – too many trucks chasing too little freight – the resultant weak freight rate environment, and continued softness in late-model used tractor values.”

Ford doesn't want to make it easy for North American customers to know. Heaven forbid, potential U.S. heavy truck customers might begin asking questions about availability, which Ford's N.A. customer relations people would view as an annoying distraction.

Paul, compare the two amateur US market mDrive brochures with the far better one put out by Mack Australia. Volvo still keeps their hands tied about releasing any specs, but it's a much better brochure. Must be two different Mack outfits. Mack US (which operates in a vacuum under clueless management) http://www.macktrucks.com/~/media/files/brochures/mack_mdrive_ss_0316_hr.ashx?as=1&la=en http://www.macktrucks.com/~/media/files/brochures/mack_mdrive_hd_crawl_sellsht.ashx?as=1 Mack Australia (which carries on like a professional, accomplished truckmaker). https://www.macktrucks.com.au/~/media/files au/brochures/mdrive_brochure_12_2015.ashx?as=1&la=en The US market brochures don't mention "Maxi-Shift" and "Heavy-Duty Shift". In the spirit of the former Mack Trucks' Maxidyne, Maxitorque and Maxi-Glas terminology, Mack Australia carries the flame forward with "Maxi-Shift".

Volvo Group only has one Mack brand plant in the US, that being Lehigh Valley Operations (previously called Macungie by the former Mack Trucks after its location), outside of Allentown. Is that the location you visited?

Truck's are a rare item in Volvo Group's lifeless North American market "Born Ready" video. When trucks are visible...........they are always in the background. The video appears to have been originally created for a work clothes manufacturer, and resuscitated in a bid at Volvo's Mack brand business. The video is a black eye for Volvo's U.S. brand and marketing firm, VSA partners. . . Given how pathetic the US market video is, it's puzzling how Mack Australia was able to do what amounts to being a rather good "Born Ready" video. Same meaningless, bland and forgettable slogan, but the video actually focuses on Mack, heritage and........trucks. The one mistake is Volvo didn't hire the immensely respected Steve Brooks to be the narrator. . If one didn't know better, you'd swear that you were looking at two entirely different truckmakers (a bad one, and a very good one). That takeaway is damning to Volvo, and verifies once more that.........what Volvo Group has done, reduce an American icon down to a mere shell of its former self, a Mack nameplate on a North American Volvo platform, should be a crime.

All that said, you realize that the Volvo I-Shift (and Mack-branded variants) is available in many versions with differing ratings. The units sold in Oz are not identical to the units sold in the states. Volvo's US market I-Shift (mdrive) brochures don't list models, max torque ratings or gear ratios........no specs whatsoever. Apparently you're supposed to blindly trust them, and not question.

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I'm not sure that I'm following you. Click on this link below, and then click on "Visit International Site", or click on the word "International" at the bottom left of the page. https://www.fordtrucks.com.tr/Language

The Prima, introduced in 2008, is a tale of two trucks. The India-produced Tata-branded Prima is rugged where it counts (chassis), but low cost in all other areas to meet the ultra price sensitive Indian market requirement. Meanwhile, the Korea-produced Daewoo-branded Prima is medium to high-end with Daewoo 11-liter V-8 power to 450hp, Cummins ISM to 440hp and [Iveco] Cursor 13 power up to 560 hp, paired with ZF 16-speed manual transmissions or ZF AS Tronic 12-speed AMTs, and air suspension. (FYI - General Motors purchased the car-making Daewoo Motors in 2002, and Tata acquired Daewoo Commercial Vehicles in 2004) Tata Daewoo Global Website - http://www.tata-daewoo.com/ Tata (India) Global Website - http://www.tatamotors.com/product/prima/ Tractor brochure http://www.trucksplanet.com/photo/daewoo/prima/prima_k1055.pdf Tipper brochure http://www.trucksplanet.com/photo/daewoo/prima/prima_k1054.pdf Mixer brochure http://www.trucksplanet.com/photo/daewoo/prima/prima_k987.pdf Rigid brochure http://www.trucksplanet.com/photo/daewoo/prima/prima_k991.pdf .

Bloomberg / June 5, 2016 Failure was not an option. It was July 1974. A steady predawn drizzle had given way to overcast skies when William Simon, newly appointed U.S. Treasury secretary, and his deputy, Gerry Parsky, stepped onto an 8 a.m. flight from Andrews Air Force Base. On board, the mood was tense. That year, the oil crisis had hit home. An embargo by OPEC’s Arab nations—payback for U.S. military aid to the Israelis during the Yom Kippur War—quadrupled oil prices. Inflation soared, the stock market crashed, and the U.S. economy was in a tailspin. Officially, Simon’s two-week trip was billed as a tour of economic diplomacy across Europe and the Middle East, full of the customary meet-and-greets and evening banquets. But the real mission, kept in strict confidence within President Richard Nixon’s inner circle, would take place during a four-day layover in the coastal city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The goal: neutralize crude oil as an economic weapon and find a way to persuade a hostile kingdom to finance America’s widening deficit with its newfound petrodollar wealth. And according to Parsky, Nixon made clear there was simply no coming back empty-handed. Failure would not only jeopardize America’s financial health but could also give the Soviet Union an opening to make further inroads into the Arab world. It “wasn’t a question of whether it could be done or it couldn’t be done,” said Parsky, 73, one of the few officials with Simon during the Saudi talks. At first blush, Simon, who had just done a stint as Nixon’s energy czar, seemed ill-suited for such delicate diplomacy. Before being tapped by Nixon, the chain-smoking New Jersey native ran the vaunted Treasuries desk at Salomon Brothers. To career bureaucrats, the brash Wall Street bond trader—who once compared himself to Genghis Khan—had a temper and an outsize ego that was painfully out of step in Washington. Just a week before setting foot in Saudi Arabia, Simon publicly lambasted the Shah of Iran, a close regional ally at the time, calling him a “nut.” But Simon, better than anyone else, understood the appeal of U.S. government debt and how to sell the Saudis on the idea that America was the safest place to park their petrodollars. With that knowledge, the administration hatched an unprecedented do-or-die plan that would come to influence just about every aspect of U.S.-Saudi relations over the next four decades (Simon died in 2000 at the age of 72). The basic framework was strikingly simple. The U.S. would buy oil from Saudi Arabia and provide the kingdom military aid and equipment. In return, the Saudis would plow billions of their petrodollar revenue back into Treasuries and finance America’s spending. It took several discreet follow-up meetings to iron out all the details, Parsky said. But at the end of months of negotiations, there remained one small, yet crucial, catch: King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud demanded the country’s Treasury purchases stay “strictly secret,” according to a diplomatic cable obtained by Bloomberg from the National Archives database. With a handful of Treasury and Federal Reserve officials, the secret was kept for more than four decades—until now. In response to a Freedom-of-Information-Act request submitted by Bloomberg News, the Treasury broke out Saudi Arabia’s holdings for the first time this month after “concluding that it was consistent with transparency and the law to disclose the data,” according to spokeswoman Whitney Smith. The $117 billion trove makes the kingdom one of America’s largest foreign creditors. Yet in many ways, the information has raised more questions than it has answered. A former Treasury official, who specialized in central bank reserves and asked not to be identified, says the official figure vastly understates Saudi Arabia’s investments in U.S. government debt, which may be double or more. The current tally represents just 20 percent of its $587 billion of foreign reserves, well below the two-thirds that central banks typically keep in dollar assets. Some analysts speculate the kingdom may be masking its U.S. debt holdings by accumulating Treasuries through offshore financial centers, which show up in the data of other countries. Exactly how much of America’s debt Saudi Arabia actually owns is something that matters more now than ever before. While oil’s collapse has deepened concern that Saudi Arabia will need to liquidate its Treasuries to raise cash, a more troubling worry has also emerged: the specter of the kingdom using its outsize position in the world’s most important debt market as a political weapon, much as it did with oil in the 1970s. In April, Saudi Arabia warned it would start selling as much as $750 billion in Treasuries and other assets if Congress passes a bill allowing the kingdom to be held liable in U.S. courts for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to the New York Times. The threat comes amid a renewed push by presidential candidates and legislators from both the Democratic and Republican parties to declassify a 28-page section of a 2004 U.S. government report that is believed to detail possible Saudi connections to the attacks. The bill, which passed the Senate on May 17, is now in the House of Representatives. Saudi Arabia’s Finance Ministry declined to comment on the potential selling of Treasuries in response. The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency didn’t immediately answer requests for details on the total size of its U.S. government debt holdings. “Let’s not assume they’re bluffing” about threatening to retaliate, said Marc Chandler, the global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman. “The Saudis are under a lot of pressure. I’d say that we don’t do ourselves justice if we underestimate our liabilities” to big holders. Saudi Arabia, which has long provided free health care, gasoline subsidies, and routine pay raises to its citizens with its petroleum wealth, already faces a brutal fiscal crisis. In the past year alone, the monetary authority has burned through $111 billion of reserves to plug its biggest budget deficit in a quarter-century, pay for costly wars to defeat the Islamic State, and wage proxy campaigns against Iran. Though oil has stabilized at about $50 a barrel (from less than $30 earlier this year), it’s still far below the heady years of $100-a-barrel crude. Saudi Arabia’s situation has become so acute the kingdom is now selling a piece of its crown jewel—state oil company Saudi Aramco. What’s more, the commitment to the decades-old policy of “interdependence” between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, which arose from Simon’s debt deal and ultimately bound together two nations that share few common values, is showing signs of fraying. America has taken tentative steps toward a rapprochement with Iran, highlighted by President Barack Obama’s landmark nuclear deal last year. The U.S. shale boom has also made America far less reliant on Saudi oil. “Buying bonds and all that was a strategy to recycle petrodollars back into the U.S.,” said David Ottaway, a Middle East fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington. But politically, “it’s always been an ambiguous, constrained relationship.” Yet back in 1974, forging that relationship (and the secrecy that it required) was a no-brainer, according to Parsky, who is now chairman of Aurora Capital Group, a private equity firm in Los Angeles. Many of America’s allies, including the U.K. and Japan, were also deeply dependent on Saudi oil and quietly vying to get the kingdom to reinvest money back into their own economies. “Everyone—in the U.S., France, Britain, Japan—was trying to get their fingers in the Saudis’ pockets,” said Gordon S. Brown, an economic officer with the State Department at the U.S. embassy in Riyadh from 1976 to 1978. For the Saudis, politics played a big role in their insistence that all Treasury investments remain anonymous. Tensions still flared 10 months after the Yom Kippur War, and throughout the Arab world, there was plenty of animosity toward the U.S. for its support of Israel. According to diplomatic cables, King Faisal’s biggest fear was the perception Saudi oil money would, “directly or indirectly,” end up in the hands of its biggest enemy in the form of additional U.S. assistance. Treasury officials solved the dilemma by letting the Saudis in through the back door. In the first of many special arrangements, the U.S. allowed Saudi Arabia to bypass the normal competitive bidding process for buying Treasuries by creating “add-ons.” Those sales, which were excluded from the official auction totals, hid all traces of Saudi Arabia’s presence in the U.S. government debt market. “When I arrived at the embassy, I was told by people there that this is Treasury’s business,” Brown said. “It was all handled very privately.” By 1977, Saudi Arabia had accumulated about 20 percent of all Treasuries held abroad, according to The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony: Petrodollar Recycling and International Markets by Columbia University’s David Spiro. Another exception was carved out for Saudi Arabia when the Treasury started releasing monthly country-by-country breakdowns of U.S. debt ownership. Instead of disclosing Saudi Arabia’s holdings, the Treasury grouped them with 14 other nations, such as Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Nigeria, under the generic heading “oil exporters”—a practice that continued for 41 years. The system came with its share of headaches. After the Treasury’s add-on facility was opened to other central banks, erratic and unpublicized foreign demand threatened to push the U.S. over its debt limit on several occasions. An internal memo, dated October 1976, detailed how the U.S. inadvertently raised far more than the $800 million it intended to borrow at auction. At the time, two unidentified central banks used add-ons to buy an additional $400 million of Treasuries each. In the end, one bank was awarded its portion a day late to keep the U.S. from exceeding the limit. Most of these maneuvers and hiccups were swept under the rug, and top Treasury officials went to great lengths to preserve the status quo and protect their Middle East allies as scrutiny of America’s biggest creditors increased. Over the years, the Treasury repeatedly turned to the International Investment and Trade in Services Survey Act of 1976—which shields individuals in countries where Treasuries are narrowly held—as its first line of defense. The strategy continued even after the Government Accountability Office, in a 1979 investigation, found “no statistical or legal basis” for the blackout. The GAO didn’t have power to force the Treasury to turn over the data, but it concluded the U.S. “made special commitments of financial confidentiality to Saudi Arabia” and possibly other OPEC nations. Simon, who had by then returned to Wall Street, acknowledged in congressional testimony that “regional reporting was the only way in which Saudi Arabia would agree” to invest using the add-on system. “It was clear the Treasury people weren’t going to cooperate at all,” said Stephen McSpadden, a former counsel to the congressional subcommittee that pressed for the GAO inquiries. “I’d been at the subcommittee for 17 years, and I’d never seen anything like that.” Today, Parsky says the secret arrangement with the Saudis should have been dismantled years ago and was surprised the Treasury kept it in place for so long. But even so, he has no regrets. Doing the deal “was a positive for America.” .

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