After years away from Washington, Saudi crown prince to get warm embrace
from Trump, US business
[November 18, 2025] By
AAMER MADHANI
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is set to fete Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday when the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia
makes his first White House visit since the 2018 killing of Washington
Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.
The U.S.-Saudi relationship had been sent into a tailspin by the
operation targeting Khashoggi, a fierce critic of the kingdom, that U.S.
intelligence agencies later determined Prince Mohammed likely directed
the agents to carry out.
But seven years later, the dark clouds over the relationship have been
cleared away. And Trump has tightened his embrace of the 40-year-old
crown prince he views as an indispensable player in shaping the Middle
East in the decades to come. Prince Mohammed, for his part, denies
involvement in the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen and Virginia
resident.
Khashoggi will likely be an afterthought as the two leaders unveil
billions of dollars in deals and huddle with aides to discuss the tricky
path ahead in a volatile Middle East. They'll end their day with an
evening White House soiree, organized by first lady Melania Trump, to
honor the prince.
“They have been a great ally,” Trump said of the Saudis on the eve of
the visit.
Fighter jets and business deals
Ahead of Prince Mohammed's arrival, Trump announced he has agreed to
sell the Saudis F-35 fighter jets despite some concerns within the
administration that the sale could lead to China gaining access to the
U.S. technology behind the advanced weapon system.
Trump's announcement is also surprising because some in the Republican
administration have been wary about upsetting Israel’s qualitative
military edge over its neighbors, especially at a time when Trump is
depending on Israeli support for the success of his Gaza peace plan.
But the unexpected move comes at a moment when Trump is trying to nudge
the Saudis toward normalizing relations with Israel.
The president in his first term had helped forge commercial and
diplomatic ties between Israel and Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab
Emirates through an effort dubbed the Abraham Accords.
Trump sees expansion of the accords as essential to his broader efforts
to build stability in the Middle East after the two-year Israel-Hamas
war in Gaza.
And getting Saudi Arabia — the largest Arab economy and the birthplace
of Islam — to sign on would create an enormous domino effect, he argues.
The president in recent weeks has even predicted that once Saudi Arabia
signs on to the accords, “everybody” in the Arab world “goes in.”
But the Saudis have maintained that a clear path toward Palestinian
statehood must first be established before normalizing relations with
Israel can be considered. The Israelis, meanwhile, remain steadfastly
opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.
[to top of second column] |
President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
gesture as they meet delegations at the Royal Palace in Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
 The U.N. Security Council on Monday
approved a U.S. plan for Gaza that authorizes an international
stabilization force to provide security in the devastated territory
and envisions a possible future path to an independent Palestinian
state.
Assurances on US military support
The leaders certainly will have plenty to talk about including
maintaining the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, mutual concerns about
Iran’s malign behavior, and a brutal civil war in Sudan.
And the Saudis are looking to receive formal assurances from Trump
defining the scope of U.S. military protection for the kingdom, even
though anything not ratified by Congress can be undone by the next
president.
Prince Mohammed, 40, who has stayed away from the West after the
Khashoggi killing, is also looking to reestablish his position as a
global player and a leader determined to diversify the Saudi economy
away from oil by investing in sectors like mining, technology and
tourism.
To that end, Saudi Arabia is expected to announce a multi-billion
dollar investment in U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure,
and the two countries will lay out details about new cooperation in
the civil nuclear energy sector, according to a senior Trump
administration official who was not authorized to comment publicly
ahead of the formal announcement.
“I think the challenge for us as Americans is to try to convince
someone like MBS that the trajectory of Saudi Arabia ought to look
more like South Korea than, say, China,” said Bernard Haykel, a
professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, speaking
at a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace event on Monday.
“That, ultimately, political repression of political dissent is not
good for business. It’s not good for attracting foreign direct
investment, it’s not good for your image if you’re a tourism
destination.”
But this week's warm embrace by Trump might provide a counterfactual
to that argument for the crown prince.
In addition to White House pomp, the two nations are also 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.
___
AP writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.
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