The White House meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with lavish pomp and fanfares, was vintage Donald Trump. The sort of sycophancy the US president lavishes on tyrants and royals, no matter how cruel or corrupt, was as usual a far cry from the patronising condescension and insults afforded to those he regards as inferiors, or those looking for favours.
“It’s an honour to be your friend, and it’s an honour that you’re here,” Trump told the kingdom’s de facto ruler, a man US intelligence has said was probably responsible for approving the murder and dismembering of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Istanbul Saudi consulate in 2018. To much of the West, he has been seen since then as a pariah.
But now the prince has weapons to buy and billions in investment to sweeten the pill of a diplomatic embrace that few others would even contemplate.
Prince Mohammed smiled broadly, nodding, as Trump assured assembled journalists that “a lot of people didn’t like” Khashoggi and that his guest knew nothing about the killing in advance. “Things happen,” Trump said. The prince insisted he had taken measures to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.
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Trump offered up F-35s – the US’s stealth fighter jets – and hinted at willingness to give the Saudis advanced US chips and nuclear technology. There would also be co-operation on the development of critical minerals.
This was very much a reset of relations and international standing on the prince’s own terms. Pure business. There is no question yet of Saudi Arabia acceding to Trump’s hope that it will join his much-touted Abraham Accords and recognise Israel.
This would not happen, the prince said explicitly in the White House, while the latter refuses to incorporate a pathway to a “two-state” solution in his Gaza plan.
That will be some comfort to Palestine’s friends watching on nervously.
