WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump set to fett Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader will visit the White House for the first time since the killing of a Washington Post reporter in 2018. Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.
Relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia had been hit by an operation targeting Khashoggi, a fierce critic of Saudi Arabia, after U.S. intelligence said it had identified Prince Mohammed. Probably instructed by an agent to carry out.
But after seven years, the dark clouds that hung over their relationship have lifted. And Trump has tightened his embrace of the 40-year-old crown prince, whom he sees as essential to shaping the Middle East for decades to come. Prince Mohammed has denied any involvement in the murder of Khashoggi, a Saudi national and resident of Virginia.
Mr. Khashoggi’s comments are likely to take a backseat as the two leaders announce multibillion-dollar deals and gather with their aides to discuss the difficult path forward in the volatile Middle East. The couple will conclude the day with an evening White House soirée in honor of the prince, hosted by First Lady Melania Trump.
“They’re a great ally,” Trump said of Saudi Arabia on the eve of his visit.
Fighters and business deals
Prior to Prince Mohammed’s arrival, President Trump announced: Agreement reached to sell Saudi F-35 fighter jets Despite concerns from some within the administration that the sale would give China access to the U.S. technology behind advanced weapons systems.
President Trump’s announcement also comes as a surprise, as some in the Republican administration are wary of undermining Israel’s qualitative military advantage over its neighbors, especially at a time when Trump relies on Israeli support for the success of his policies. Gaza peace plan.
But the unexpected move comes as President Trump attempts to move Saudi Arabia toward normalizing relations with Israel.
During his first term, the president undertook initiatives that he described as “contributing to the development of commercial and diplomatic relations between Israel and Bahrain, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates.” Abraham Accords.
President Trump believes expanding the deal is essential to broader efforts to build stability in the region after the two-year Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza.
He argues that if Saudi Arabia, the largest Arab economy and the birthplace of Islam, signs on, it will create a huge domino effect. The president even predicted in recent weeks that “everyone” in the Arab world would join the deal if Saudi Arabia signed it.
But Saudi Arabia insists it must first establish a clear path to a Palestinian state before considering normalizing relations with Israel. Meanwhile, Israelis remain adamantly opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The United Nations Security Council on Monday US Gaza Plan Authorizes the International Stabilization Force to provide security for devastated territories; Envision possible future paths to an independent Palestinian state.
Guarantee of U.S. military support
The leaders will certainly have much to discuss, including maintaining the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, mutual concerns about Iran’s malign behavior, and the brutal civil war in Sudan.
And Saudi Arabia is seeking formal assurances from President Trump that define the scope of U.S. military protection for the kingdom, even though anything not ratified by Congress could be revoked by the next president.
Prince Mohammed, 40, who has distanced himself from the West since Khashoggi’s murder, is also seeking to re-establish himself as a global player and leader determined to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil by investing in sectors such as mining, technology and tourism.
To that end, Saudi Arabia is expected to announce billions of dollars in investments in U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure, and the two countries will detail new cooperation in civil nuclear energy, according to a 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 convince someone like MBS that Saudi Arabia’s trajectory should be more similar to South Korea than, say, China,” Bernard Heikel, a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University, spoke Monday at a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace event. “At the end of the day, political repression of political dissent is bad for business. It’s bad for attracting foreign direct investment, and if you’re a tourist destination, it’s bad for your image.”
But a warm embrace from President Trump this week may disprove that claim for the crown prince.
Adding to the White House glamor, the two countries are planning an investment summit at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday that will include the heads of Salesforce, Qualcomm, Pfizer, Cleveland Clinic, Chevron and Saudi Arabia’s national oil and gas company Aramco, where further deals with Saudi Arabia could be announced.
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Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.
