President Donald Trump welcomed Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud to the White House Tuesday ahead of a Saudi-hosted investment summit in Washington.
The visit comes as Trump has courted the kingdom as the U.S. seeks to deepen ties with the country and broker broader peace in the Middle East.
The leaders are expected to unveil deals spanning technology and defense sectors, which would include a multi-billion-dollar investment in AI infrastructure, cooperation on civil nuclear energy, defense sales, and advancement of the kingdom’s previous commitment to make $600 billion in investments in the U.S., according to a senior administration official.
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The investment commitment brokered during Trump’s visit to the kingdom in May spans technology and energy sectors, while the White House also touted at the time the “largest defense sales agreement in history” at nearly $142 billion.
“Thanks to our Dealmaker-in-Chief, the United States secured $600 billion in historic investments during the President’s visit to Saudi Arabia earlier this year, and Americans can expect more good deals for our country spanning technology, manufacturing, critical minerals, defense, and more,” White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly stated.
Ahead of the crown prince’s visit to the White House, Trump said he intends to sell Saudi Arabia F-35s.
“They want to buy, they've been a great ally,” Trump said Tuesday.
The provision of F-35s marks a significant defense commitment after concerns over Chinese access to sensitive technology.
“My thought is, you know, they must be looking at information and intelligence that shows that Saudi has come a very long way and changed kind of its orientation in order to strengthen ties with the United States. And they're very tangible things that the Saudis would need to do to make the US side comfortable. And I'm assuming they must have done that,” said Alex Gray, who served as National Security Council chief of staff during Trump’s first term.
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But Saudi Arabia is also a key nation for Trump’s broader diplomatic goals in the region as he seeks to expand the Abraham Accords. He suggested ahead of the visit, they would be a part of the leaders' discussions.
“I hope that Saudi Arabia will be going into the Abraham Accords fairly shortly. We've had tremendous interest in the Abraham Accords since we put Iran outta business,” Trump told reporters last week.
Trump told Time Magazine in an interview in October that he believed they were “very close” to normalized relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and that he believed Saudi Arabia would join the accords by the end of the year. “I think, when Saudi Arabia goes in, everybody goes in,” Trump told Maria Bartiromo in an interview on Fox News Sunday last month.
“There's a real worry, particularly when you have Israel, smack dab in the middle of this hostile region, that providing advanced technology to countries that are not necessarily friendly to it are, you know, is a bit of a risky proposition. It's something that's going to be opposed by Jerusalem. So the fact that the President has made progress on selling the F-35 suggests to me that there is some flexibility in the Saudi position about normalization with the Israelis, because I think otherwise it would be a non-starter,” said Ilan Berman, Senior Vice President of the American Foreign Policy Council.
The previous Biden administration contended Saudi Arabia’s normalization of relations was in part an impetus for Hamas’ Oct. 7th attack on Israel, which led to war in Gaza, where the situation remains delicate.
The visit comes as the Trump administration continues to pursue its peace plan for Gaza, which, after the exchange of hostages and prisoners, calls for the creation of an international stabilization force, a board of peace to provide governing oversight and the disarmament of Hamas. The United Nations Security Council gave its backing to the plan during a Monday vote.
“Sort of the open secret here is there's a lot of questions about the Saudis and the Emiratis, whether or not they're actually going to participate in post-conflict peacekeeping and reconstruction. The Saudis and the Emiratis both have said that they're not going to do that if Hamas isn't removed,” Berman said.
Trump has publicly placed significance on the relationship with Saudi Arabia. His first foreign leaders' call during his second term was to the crown prince, and his first foreign visit was to the kingdom, in contrast with the Biden administration, in which President Biden had once vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi before ultimately meeting with the crown prince.
For Trump, the reciprocal visit could mark a significant signal about the relationship.
“I think, in terms of politics, concretely, what we're looking at is this is pretty high stakes, in the sense that Saudi Arabia holds a lot of the cards that the President really values. He wants the Saudis to buy into the you know, his peace plan for Gaza, he very much wants to facilitate Saudi Arabia's entry into the Abraham Accords. And there's a lot of things that the Saudis want in return,” said Berman.
Gray said the administration“ is looking for kind of a public signal that the relationship has reached a new high.”
“I think the subtext of this is, you know, KSA had started looking like they were drifting into China's orbit in the previous US administration as a response to, you know, hedging against the Biden administration. I think this is going to be a very clear mark that KSA is firmly in the American Camp,” said Gray.
“The administration is worried about being outflanked by the Chinese, because the Chinese have spent over the last several years dozens of billions of dollars in terms of investment in the kingdom. And so the worry there is that as Riyadh and Beijing get closer and closer, that Washington is going to be disadvantaged,” said Berman.
Though an official working visit, it will include an arrival ceremony, bilateral meeting and dinner, which is expected to be attended by defense and technology CEO’s according to a source familiar with it.
But behind the pomp and circumstance, the visit marks the crown prince’s first visit to the United States since 2018 and the killing of Khashoggi.
Khashoggi was murdered in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul. The crown prince has denied involvement, though the US intelligence community concluded he likely ordered the operation.
