A visit by Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler to the White House for talks on Tuesday with U.S. President Donald Trump aims to deepen decades-old cooperation on oil and security while broadening ties in commerce, technology and potentially even nuclear energy,
Reuters reports.
It will be the first trip by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the U.S. since the 2018 killing of Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul, which caused a global uproar. U.S. intelligence concluded that MBS approved the capture or killing of Khashoggi, a prominent critic.
The crown prince, widely known by his initials MBS, denied ordering the operation but acknowledged responsibility as the kingdom's de facto ruler.
More than seven years later, the world's largest economy and the world's top oil producer want to move forward.
Trump is seeking to cash in on a $600 billion Saudi investment pledge made during Trump's visit to the kingdom in May. He steered clear of mentioning human rights concerns during that trip and is expected to do so again.
The Saudi leader is seeking security guarantees amid regional turmoil and wants access to artificial intelligence technology and progress toward a deal on a civilian nuclear programme.
"There is a page that has been turned" on Khashoggi's killing, said Aziz Alghashian, Saudi-based lecturer of international relations at Naif Arab University for Security Sciences.
The United States and Saudi Arabia have long had an arrangement for the kingdom to sell oil at favourable prices and for the superpower to provide security in exchange.
That equation was shaken by Washington's failure to act when Iran struck oil installations in the kingdom in 2019. Concerns resurfaced in September, when Israel struck Doha, Qatar, in an attack it said targeted members of Palestinian militant group Hamas.
In the aftermath, Trump signed a defence pact with Qatar via executive order. Many analysts, diplomats and regional officials believe the Saudis will get something similar.
Saudi Arabia has sought a defence pact ratified by the U.S. Congress in recent negotiations. But Washington has made that contingent on the kingdom normalizing ties with Israel.
Riyadh has in turn linked that to a commitment from Israel's government, the most right-wing in its history, to Palestinian statehood. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who agreed to a Trump-brokered ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza last month after two years of war, on Sunday reaffirmed his staunch opposition to Palestinian independence.
A Trump executive order on defence similar to the pact with Qatar would fall short of the defence agreement the Saudis have sought. But Alghashian said it would "be a step on the way, part of the process, not the end of the process."
A Western diplomat based in the Gulf summed up the dynamic: "Trump wants normalization and Saudi wants a full defence pact, but the circumstances don't allow. In the end, both sides will likely get less than they want. That's diplomacy."
