Saudi Arabia
6 min read
Trump defends Saudi crown prince over Khashoggi killing
The de facto Saudi ruler was branded an outcast after the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Now, U.S.-Saudi relations are approaching a high point.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the killing of Washington Post opinion columnist Jamal Khashoggi, saying “things happen” and that he did not hold the Saudi leader responsible for the 2018 murder despite a U.S. intelligence report assessing the opposite.
Trump’s dismissive language offered the highest-level confirmation yet that Mohammed will face few consequences for the killing, as the crown prince makes his first visit to Washington since Khashoggi was dismembered in a Saudi consulate in Turkey.
“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen, but [Mohammed] knew nothing about it,” Trump said in response to a question. “And we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”
Mohammed arrived to a grand welcome from Trump at the White House on Tuesday, greeted at the South Portico with an honor guard of black horses and herald trumpeters, a remarkable turnaround for the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia who had been branded a pariah in 2018 after the CIA concluded that he had approved the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.
The arrival, filled with more pomp than any world leader thus far in Trump’s second term, was a measure of the U.S. president’s affection for the Saudi prince and his rehabilitation following the killing. Trump treated Mohammed to a flyover of six fighter jets that streaked across the Washington sky, as large U.S. and Saudi flags fluttered from the black horses that walked across the South Lawn in procession. Trump escorted the crown prince into the White House, where the two leaders were going to meet in the Oval Office before a working lunch and then a grand dinner.
The leaders are expected to sign deals ranging from weapons sales to agreements around artificial intelligence and critical minerals, according to White House officials. And while it’s unlikely that progress toward normalization with Israel will be announced, Trump is expected to continue to press the issue.
Ahead of the visit, streetlights on Washington’s Lafayette Square were festooned with the green Saudi Arabian flag alongside the American one — a courtesy not usually extended to foreign guests. So far this year, only Polish President Karol Nawrocki has had a military flyover as he arrived at the White House.
Saudi Arabia is eager to deepen defense cooperation with the United States, a critical prerequisite for the kingdom’s ambitious plans to diversify its economy. Mohammed is expected to sign deals to purchase defense equipment from the U.S., according to a senior administration official speaking under ground rules of anonymity to preview the agreements. Trump told reporters Monday he would approve the sale of F-35s — some of the world’s most advanced aircraft — to the kingdom.
“They’ve been a great ally,” Trump said Monday in the Oval Office. “We will be doing that, we’ll be selling F-35s.” The two leaders will sign agreements in the Cabinet Room on Tuesday before they have lunch together with their advisers.
Some Republican lawmakers have expressed concern over the potential F-35 sale, fearful it could upend the military balance in the Middle East and anger Israel.
There are also concerns that if transferred to Saudi Arabia, the F-35 technology could be easier for China to steal, as the kingdom has a close relationship with Beijing.
Mohammed is also carrying a letter from Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, according to Ali Shihabi, a Saudi commentator close to the kingdom’s leadership, a possible signal of a renewed attempt at diplomacy by Tehran. Shihabi did not have information on the content of the letter. Trump communicated with Iranian leadership through written letters ahead of launching talks over Iran’s nuclear program earlier this year.
Trump has long embraced Riyadh, making Saudi Arabia his first foreign destination during his first term and visiting Riyadh again as the first major trip of his second, apart from a brief visit to Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral.
Shihabi said the visit Tuesday “is cementing a very close relationship that has developed with this administration and actually in the last year of the Biden administration also.”
Shihabi added that the fact U.S.-Saudi ties have endured numerous serious crises demonstrates that there is “a fundamental strategic logic to this relationship that has sustained it over 80 years.”
The Tuesday visit is also a chance for Trump to repay the over-the-top reception he was given in Riyadh when he visited in May. The Saudi Air Force flew alongside Air Force One as he arrived. After he landed, an honor guard with golden swords greeted him, and a procession of Arabian horses flanked his motorcade.
“We’re more than meeting,” Trump told reporters on Friday as he flew to Florida for the weekend. “We’re honoring Saudi Arabia, the crown prince.”
During the early years of his rise to power, Mohammed, 40, launched harsh crackdowns on domestic rivals and spearheaded ill-fated interventions in Yemen and Qatar that ultimately backfired.
Since then, Mohammed has tightened his grip on power within Saudi Arabia, but has also attempted to cast himself as a peacemaker on the global stage, eager to cultivate the regional stability critical to his ambitious plans to transform the Saudi economy. Determined to open Saudi Arabia up to the outside world, Mohammed also sidelined powerful clerics in the country as he reversed a ban on female drivers and integrated more Saudi women into the workforce.
Before the killing of Khashoggi, Mohammed enjoyed glowing media coverage and had embarked on a tour of the U.S., pitching investments in the kingdom to tech leaders, Hollywood producers and billionaire investors. After Khashoggi’s killing and a U.S. intelligence assessment that determined the crown prince was responsible, Mohammed was branded a pariah.
The isolation didn’t last long. While President Joe Biden vowed to treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah” during his 2020 campaign, he eventually turned to Mohammed to help lower global oil prices after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and later worked closely with the Saudis on Gaza. Biden greeted Mohammed with a fist bump in 2022 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, an encounter that drew criticism from human rights activists.
Trump remains eager to broker a deal that would pull Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, but that goal remains remote for now. Saudi officials have said there must be a clear path to a Palestinian state before they can attempt to sell normalization with Israel to the kingdom’s public.
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