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Saudi Crown Prince Welcomed to DC 11/18 06:13
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump is set to fete Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday when the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia makes
his first White House visit since the 2018 killing of Washington Post
journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.
The U.S.-Saudi relationship had been sent into a tailspin by the operation
targeting Khashoggi, a fierce critic of the kingdom, that U.S. intelligence
agencies later determined Prince Mohammed likely directed the agents to carry
out.
But seven years later, the dark clouds over the relationship have been
cleared away. And Trump has tightened his embrace of the 40-year-old crown
prince he views as an indispensable player in shaping the Middle East in the
decades to come. Prince Mohammed, for his part, denies involvement in the
killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen and Virginia resident.
Khashoggi will likely be an afterthought as the two leaders unveil billions
of dollars in deals and huddle with aides to discuss the tricky path ahead in a
volatile Middle East. They'll end their day with an evening White House soiree,
organized by first lady Melania Trump, to honor the prince.
"They have been a great ally," Trump said of the Saudis on the eve of the
visit.
Fighter jets and business deals
Ahead of Prince Mohammed's arrival, Trump announced he has agreed to sell
the Saudis F-35 fighter jets despite some concerns within the administration
that the sale could lead to China gaining access to the U.S. technology behind
the advanced weapon system.
Trump's announcement is also surprising because some in the Republican
administration have been wary about upsetting Israel's qualitative military
edge over its neighbors, especially at a time when Trump is depending on
Israeli support for the success of his Gaza peace plan.
But the unexpected move comes at a moment when Trump is trying to nudge the
Saudis toward normalizing relations with Israel.
The president in his first term had helped forge commercial and diplomatic
ties between Israel and Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates through
an effort dubbed the Abraham Accords.
Trump sees expansion of the accords as essential to his broader efforts to
build stability in the Middle East after the two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
And getting Saudi Arabia -- the largest Arab economy and the birthplace of
Islam -- to sign on would create an enormous domino effect, he argues. The
president in recent weeks has even predicted that once Saudi Arabia signs on to
the accords, "everybody" in the Arab world "goes in."
But the Saudis have maintained that a clear path toward Palestinian
statehood must first be established before normalizing relations with Israel
can be considered. The Israelis, meanwhile, remain steadfastly opposed to the
creation of a Palestinian state.
The U.N. Security Council on Monday approved a U.S. plan for Gaza that
authorizes an international stabilization force to provide security in the
devastated territory and envisions a possible future path to an independent
Palestinian state.
Assurances on US military support
The leaders certainly will have plenty to talk about including maintaining
the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, mutual concerns about Iran's malign behavior,
and a brutal civil war in Sudan.
And the Saudis are looking to receive formal assurances from Trump defining
the scope of U.S. military protection for the kingdom, even though anything not
ratified by Congress can be undone by the next president.
Prince Mohammed, 40, who has stayed away from the West after the Khashoggi
killing, is also looking to reestablish his position as a global player and a
leader determined to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil by investing in
sectors like mining, technology and tourism.
To that end, Saudi Arabia is expected to announce a multi-billion dollar
investment in U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure, and the two
countries will lay out details about new cooperation in the civil nuclear
energy sector, according to a senior 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 try to convince someone
like MBS that the trajectory of Saudi Arabia ought to look more like South
Korea than, say, China," said Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern
Studies at Princeton University, speaking at a Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace event on Monday. "That, ultimately, political repression of
political dissent is not good for business. It's not good for attracting
foreign direct investment, it's not good for your image if you're a tourism
destination."
But this week's warm embrace by Trump might provide a counterfactual to that
argument for the crown prince.
In addition to White House pomp, the two nations are also planning an
investment summit at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday that will include the
heads of Salesforce, Qualcomm, Pfizer, the Cleveland Clinic, Chevron and
Aramco, Saudi Arabia's national oil and natural gas company, where even more
deals with the Saudis could be announced.
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