U.S. President Donald Trump will roll out the red carpet for Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, on Tuesday for a visit expected to advance the sale of F-35 fighter jets and a host of business deals with the kingdom.
Bin Salman, widely known as MBS, last visited Washington just months before U.S. resident and Saudi citizen Jamal Khashoggi was killed in Turkey in October 2018. Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who often criticized the Saudi royals, entered a Saudi consulate in Istanbul and was never seen alive again.
U.S. intelligence concluded that MBS approved the capture or the grisly killing of Khashoggi. The crown prince denied ordering the operation but acknowledged responsibility as the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
The warm welcome he will receive in Washington on Tuesday is the latest sign that relations have recovered from the deep strain caused by Khashoggi’s murder.
Seven years on, MBS casts himself as a broker of peace, repairing ties with Iran, pushing for a Gaza ceasefire and welcoming Syria back into the Arab fold. Domestically, he has emerged as the most momentous and audacious leader in the kingdom’s modern history, driving an economic transformation and opening up some sectors of society.
The prince was invited by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to participate in the G7 summit this summer in Alberta, but did not attend.
Fighter jet sale would mark regional shift
Trump hopes to cash in on a $600-billion US Saudi investment pledge made during his visit to the kingdom in May. He steered clear of mentioning human rights concerns during that trip and is expected to do so again.
On Monday, Trump told reporters “we’ll be selling” F-35s to Saudi, which has requested to buy 48 of the advanced aircraft.
On the first day of his Middle East trip, U.S. President Donald Trump praised his host, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. He also earned praise for announcing the end of U.S. sanctions on Syria.
It would be the first U.S. sale of the fighter jets to Saudi and mark a significant policy shift. Until now, Israel has been the only country in the Middle East to have the F-35.
Beyond military equipment, the Saudi leader is seeking security guarantees, access to artificial intelligence technology and progress on a deal on a civilian nuclear program.
Former U.S. negotiator in the Middle East Dennis Ross, who is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Trump wants to develop a multifaceted relationship that keeps Saudi out of China’s sphere.
“President Trump believes all these steps bind the Saudis increasingly to us on a range of issues, ranging from security to the finance-AI-energy nexus. He wants them bound to us on these issues and not China,” Ross said.
U.S. seeks Saudi-Israeli rapprochement
Trump is expected to pressure MBS for Saudi to join the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel.
The Saudis have been reluctant to take such a major step without a clear path to Palestinian statehood, a goal that has been forced to the backburner as the region grapples with the Gaza war.
Trump reached Abraham Accords agreements between Israel and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan during his first term in 2020. In recent weeks, Kazakhstan agreed to join.
But Trump has always seen Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords as the lynchpin to achieving a wider Middle East peace.
Economic modernity in the kingdom
Bin Salman’s rise began when his father, King Salman, ascended the throne in 2015 and gave him powerful portfolios, including defence, as the Saudis led a coalition to fight Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia’s ultra-conservative society has long been associated with the harsh repression of women, but that’s changed dramatically in recent years. On a rare, unsupervised visit to Riyadh, CBC’s Chris Brown met women who say they are now thriving, though challenges remain.
In 2017, he ousted his older cousin Mohammed bin Nayef as heir in a palace coup, upending a hierarchy long governed by seniority. That same year, Riyadh-born Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri surprisingly resigned after several days in Saudi Arabia, with some Lebanon officials alleging he had effectively been kidnapped and coerced by the Saudis to quit.
At home, the 40-year-old prince has defanged the once-feared religious police, sidelined clerics and swept away decades of austere social codes. Women now drive, work and mingle freely with men — freedoms once punishable by flogging.
In a kingdom that once cloaked women in mandatory black abayas and hijabs, pop stars and fashion shows now light up Riyadh, recasting Saudi Arabia’s image from a cloistered theocracy into a nation hurtling toward modernity.
Saudi Arabia has stormed the world of sport, financing the LIV golf circuit and then merging it with North America’s PGA Tour, staging some of boxing’s biggest recent fights in Riyadh and securing hosting rights for the 2034 FIFA World Cup.
Paul Salem of the Middle East Institute noted that despite past crises — including the September 11, 2001, attacks, when 15 hijackers were Saudis — the U.S. and Saudi Arabia remain bound by the same cold calculus that has defined their ties: shared interests in energy, defence and now AI.
“AI is the oil of the 21st century, and America needs Gulf energy and capital,” said Salem.
In addition to White House pomp, the two nations are planning an investment summit at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday that will include the heads of Salesforce, Qualcomm, Pfizer, the Cleveland Clinic, Chevron and Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s national oil and natural gas company, where even more deals with the Saudis could be announced.
On the eve of the visit, Saudi company Dar Global and the Trump Organization announced a deal for a planned Trump International Hotel in the Maldives, utilizing a crypto funding mechanism.
