Strongmen can have comeback stories too.
Seven years ago, Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, became an international pariah after intelligence officers said to be acting on his orders abducted and murdered the Washington Post columnist and opposition critic Jamal Khashoggi. In a gruesome coda, it later emerged, the Saudi agents dismembered his body with a bone saw in order to dispose of the evidence.
On Tuesday, Prince Mohammed was met with the most extravagant reception of the second Trump administration, as the two men said they would cement $1tn in deals and made a public show of bonhomie that marked perhaps the most important bilateral relationship of this administration.
It was far more than a simple normalisation of relations as Trump abandoned concerns over Khashoggi’s murder to pursue his latest triumph as the self-declared dealmaker-in-chief.
In an extraordinary moment in front of the press, Trump criticised the murdered columnist, whom he said “many people didn’t like” and denied US intelligence agencies’ conclusion that his murder was orchestrated by the crown prince.
“You’re mentioning someone that was extremely controversial,” Trump said of Khashoggi. “Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen, but [Prince Mohammed] knew nothing about it. Why did you have to embarrass our guest by asking about that?”
Watch the two strongmen sitting on the gilded backdrop of the Oval Office, and the message was clear: that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will usher in a new golden era for the United States. “We’re doing numbers that nobody has ever done,” said Trump, as he said that Saudi Arabia would invest up to $1tn in the United States, which he said would lead to “jobs, lots of jobs”.
“You keep increasing Mr President,” said the crown prince, who smiled eagerly through much of the meeting, as he let Trump dominate the talking. “The opportunities keep increasing.”
It was a state visit in all but name as a marine band played and black horses carrying US and Saudi green flags trotted across the South Lawn. As Trump greeted Prince Mohammed with a handshake, the US president smiled and pointed to the sky over the Washington Monument – soon a squadron of F-15 and F-35 fighter jets soared overhead as both men beamed.
Those jets will be some of the items on the Saudi leader’s shopping list as he eyes a series of deals that will illustrate the new security and economic ties between Washington and Riyadh. Those deals are being pursued over the objections of traditional allies like Israel – which has opposed the first transfer of F-35 jets to a Middle East ally that is not Israel – as well as critics within the administration worried that China may be able to intercept sensitive US military technology through their relationship with Saudi Arabia.
The moment has marked the rise of the Gulf as perhaps the major international power broker for the new Trump administration, in relationships that have been bolstered by business dealings between some of Trump’s closest friends and own family members in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and in Qatar.
All three have combined to invest nearly $5bn in a fund managed by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, while other close allies like Steve Witkoff have conducted diplomacy and personal business in the region simultaneously.
“I have nothing to do with the family business,” Trump said when asked about the deal on Tuesday. “What my family does is fine. They do business all over.”
Yet for all those involved, the business is personal. Shortly before the two men appeared on national television for a rambling press conference, Khashoggi’s widow appeared on MS Now to issue a lone call for the investigation into her husband’s murder to continue.
“It is very painful, very heavy,” she said of Prince Mohammed’s arrival in the United States. Demanding the return of her husband’s body, she said there was “unfinished business”.
