When US President Donald Trump fetes foreign guests in Washington, the spectacle is more telling than the substance. At the White House on November 18, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman enjoyed all the pomp and pageantry of a state visit – the red carpet, a parade with mounted soldiers, and an impressive flypast of F-35 fighter aircraft, the jewel in the American aviation armoury. And the president just could not contain his joy at the presence of his royal guest. “I just want to just tell you what an honour it is to be your friend,” the US president gushed, and was rewarded with a charming and self-confident smile. 

Trump then sharply attacked the hapless journalist who presumed to raise the matter of the murder of Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018, for which a CIA report had held the crown prince culpable. “You don’t have to embarrass our guest,” Trump snapped at the reporter and pointed out that “a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman [Khashoggi]”. 

Also read: Khashoggi’s Widow Confronts Trump-Salman Narrative: ‘What Trump Said Does Not Match the Truth’

He then sought to close the matter of the murder with the profound observation: “Things happen,” and went on to support the crown prince with another penetrating observation: “What he’s done is incredible in terms of human rights and everything else.” Through this outpouring of presidential rhetoric, the crown prince remained, according to The New York Times, “comfortable and confident … It was clear he felt he was among friends”.

Next day, at the US-Saudi Investment Forum in Washington, Trump simply noted that the crown prince is “one of the greatest leaders in the world” and assured the audience that we are today experiencing “the best nine months the Saudi-US relationship has ever seen”. 

Playing the president

With these cringe-worthy theatrics, Trump was merely affirming his fascination for strong leaders, particularly those from the Gulf who combine authoritarian governance with unbelievable wealth. While Senator Bernie Sanders believes “Trump is putting America on the side of the dictators and oligarchs,” Aaron David Miller has noted in a recent article: “Trump is besotted with Saudi Arabia.” 

The Gulf leaders, on their part, have learnt how to adroitly play on the vanity and lure of high value deals for the American president. This was in full display when Trump visited Riyadh in May this year where he had three summits: with his Saudi hosts, the rulers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and the leaders of selected Arab and Islamic countries. Besides the pomp and valuable gifts that were lavished upon the president, his interlocutors beguiled him with references to multi-billion-dollar deals, so that on return, he told his adoring constituency that he had deals of a trillion dollars in the bag. 

In Washington, the Saudi crown prince went a step further – when Trump mentioned that the kingdom had already promised investments of $600 billion in the US, the prince gently corrected him and said the number was now a trillion dollars. “You keep creating new opportunities for us,” the prince told the infatuated president. 

Agreement on supply of F-35 aircraft

Amidst this joyous love-fest, the crown prince could not be denied any item on his wish-list – as he generously proffered his dollars, the contracts rolled in. A day before the crown prince’s arrival, Trump announced that 48 F-35 stealth jet fighter aircraft would be provided to Saudi Arabia, causing Israel and its backers in Washington to squirm with anxiety.

In announcing the sale, Trump had said: “As far as I am concerned, I think they’re [ie, Saudi Arabia and Israel are] both at a level where they should get top of the line,” making it clear that both the US partners should equally get the best items in the US arsenal. 

Israeli commentator, Ben Caspit, says that this deal “is sending shockwaves through Israel’s defence and political establishment.” An Israeli Air Force officer has described this aircraft as a “strategic capability [that can] reach anywhere in complete secrecy”. It is a “mobile air control unit” so that when its systems are activated by the pilot, “the whole Middle East is spread out before his eyes”. 

Israeli commentators believe this deal would violate the US’s longstanding commitment to ensure that Israel retains its historic qualitative cutting edge and its air superiority across West Asia. Caspit has quoted a retired Israeli general saying that the supply of this aircraft to Saudi Arabia “will erase Israel’s qualitative edge” and attributes this to Trump’s business interests superseding the US’s commitments to Israel.

Observers have noted that the F-35 aircraft have been promised to Saudi Arabia without a reciprocal “normalisation” of ties with Israel. Crown Prince Salman was forthright when he said: “We want to be part of the Abraham Accords, but we want also to be sure that we secure a clear path of a two-state solution.” He added that he wanted Israelis and Palestinians “to coexist peacefully in the region”. None of this is acceptable to Israelis across the political spectrum.

Agreements on nuclear and security cooperation

Two other matters having security implications were also satisfactorily addressed from the Saudi perspective. During the visit, the joint statement referred to completion of negotiations regarding cooperation in civilian nuclear energy. Though details are not available, it appears that the two countries have finalised terms relating to the US supporting development of nuclear plants in Saudi Arabia to generate the huge quantum of power required by the kingdom’s expanding desalination plants as also by the data centres and digital infrastructure being set up in the country.

This could include the US providing technology for advanced large reactors and small modular reactors, with attendant provision of safety, security and non-proliferation programmes, vocational training, and safe and secure nuclear waste disposal.

The other matter pertains to the Saudi demand for a binding Senate-ratified security agreement with the US of the kind the latter had concluded with Japan in 1960. This would require a treaty approved by a two-thirds Senate vote. It is unlikely that such a far-reaching agreement with the kingdom could muster such backing in the senate. 

Instead, Trump is likely to provide Saudi Arabia with a pact similar to what he provided Qatar through an executive order after the Israeli air attack on Doha on September 9. This provides that “any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty or critical infrastructure [will be viewed] as a threat to peace and security of the United States.”

These three matters completed the crown prince’s security agenda and opened the doors for substantial interactions with the US’s business elite and finalisation of multi-billion-dollar contracts. The joint statement notes that, at the US-Saudi Investment Forum, agreements valued at $270 billion were announced. The sectors include: artificial intelligence; securing supply chains for uranium, permanent magnets, and critical minerals; procedures to accelerate investments, and cooperation in the financial markets sector.

The strategic landscape and outlook

The crown prince who met Trump in the White House this month is very different from the one who had come to Washington seven years ago. The prince had then spent three weeks in the US and visited seven cities, engaging with prominent political and business leaders. 

He was then projecting himself as a young visionary who was committed to radically transforming his country based on the “Vision-2030” programme announced a few months earlier. The vision was anchored in some utopian multi-billion-dollar projects, such as the futuristic NEOM encompassing three countries (Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan) that later included “The Line” – a 270-km long city along the Saudi border based on artificial intelligence and renewable energy.

Soon after the visit, the prince was tarnished by the gruesome murder of Khashoggi, though he insisted this was a rogue operation and he had had no knowledge of it. Again, at that time, the regional security situation included sharp confrontations with Iran and the increasing sense of US unreliability as the security guarantor; this was confirmed by the absence of US action following the Houthi attacks on Saudi oil facilities in 2019. Saudi Arabia then shrugged off the US yoke and broadened its political and economic engagements with China, Russia, and other Asian nations.

The crown prince weathered the Khashoggi storm with steady doses of social liberalisation at home and promises of significant investment opportunities, while the threat from Iran abated with the rapprochement, mediated by China, in March 2023, and later the diminution of Iranian power due to the Israeli-US attacks in June 2025. Instead, following the Israeli attack on Doha in September, the principal security threat the kingdom now faces is from Israel. Meanwhile, the resource-crunch has reshaped the crown prince’s priorities: the ambitious and expensive NEOM projects have been abandoned and there is a new focus on technology as the anchor for the kingdom’s future course of development. 

Thus, the crown prince who met Trump in Washington in November was, in the words of Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, “older and wiser”. 

Prince Salman has correctly assessed that the Trumpian moment in the White House offers the rare opportunity of engagement with a fiercely transactional leader obsessed with business deals and happy to blur private and national interest; one who is willing to dilute his country’s security commitments to Israel and compromising his country’s restrictions on supplying the kingdom sensitive dual-use technology that,  officials have earlier warned, could reach the US’s enemies. Nor is the president even minimally interested in matters relating to human rights that previous US administrations have upheld (often hypocritically), placing severe limits on ties with Saudi Arabia. 

Also read: Boosted Investments, Israel, F-35s: What Came of Trump-MBS Meeting Held Under Khashoggi Shadow

Thus, with cynical abandon, the kingdom has lavished business gifts on the president’s immediate family and close associates. These have included Saudi support for the president’s golf resorts and other businesses when he was out of office, with those arrangements remaining in place in Trump’s second term. Since Trump’s election, the Saudi entity, Dar Global, has joined four projects in the kingdom involving the Trump family, while the Saudi sovereign wealth fund has invested $2 billion in a fund run by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Thus, in Washington, the crown prince was driven by a clear-eyed sense of purpose and direction. Dangling the lure of a trillion-dollar investment (time-frame not specified), the prince focused on obtaining all that he could for his country’s security interests and economic advancement. In all of this, the prince has been remarkably successful. 

It should also be noted that both sides view their ties – personal and bilateral – as unabashedly transactional and directed at obtaining immediate advantages, without being complicated with expectations of long-term commitments. The sojourn in Washington has not diluted the crown prince’s distrust of the US as an unreliable security partner, nor has it compromised his commitment to strategic autonomy. In Washington, there was joy on both sides, but no exchange of rings will follow.

Talmiz Ahmad is a former ambassador to Oman, the UAE and Saudi Arabia and a Distinguished Professor for International Studies at Symbiosis International University, Pune.

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