I first met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh in 2018. He took me to several workstations in his cavernous offices, showing off the ambitious projects and technological advancements needed to diversify his economy. My after-visit summary was: “He has lightning in his veins.” I meant that in two ways: the positive sense of great energy, and the negative of rash unpredictability.
Given that he is only 40, MBS (as he is known) will likely be the absolute ruler of his land for many decades. There is no underplaying the significance of his arrival in Washington to meet with President Donald Trump this week, especially given the heightened geopolitical stakes in the region and the increasingly shared global interests of the US and Saudi Arabia.
All went more or less as scripted: The crown prince was warmly welcomed at the Oval Office; the kingdom reportedly pledged up to $1 trillion investment in the US; and the Saudis were granted the coveted status of a major non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally. A flyover of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters presaged the offer to sell the kingdom that fifth-generation plane. Deals on peaceful nuclear power, artificial intelligence cooperation, critical minerals and other issues were pushed ahead.
The visit displayed a warm personal friendship between the mercurial crown prince and the mercurial president. Any lingering shadow from the killing of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 — which the CIA found was ordered by MBS — was brushed aside.
Yet beyond the public displays of alignment and affection, what are the geostrategic drivers of the US-Saudi relationship? Where should the Trump administration seek to cash the political capital it created with the lavish visit?
First and foremost, the White House should push the Saudis to fully support Trump’s 20-point Mideast peace plan that includes rebuilding Gaza and putting a pan-Arab peacekeeping force on the ground. This could put paid to the final remnants of Hamas and bring stability and a steady flow of humanitarian goods to the 2.2 million Palestinians in the battered enclave. While Israel would probably hold onto a buffer zone of sorts, an Arab force — perhaps with additional peacekeepers from other Islamic states such as Indonesia and Turkey — is the only way to fully pacify the Gaza Strip.
Ending the war and rebuilding Gaza is the key to normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, one of Trump’s dearest diplomatic objectives. While the crown prince continues to say that cannot occur until there is a viable path to a Palestinian state, the Trump administration may be able to finesse that requirement by simply pushing it out years into the future.
A second area of mutual concern is Iran, which has been at the top of the agenda in my meetings with MBS. The best strategy is to continue to box it out of the region, ensuring there is no return of strong Iranian proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq. This will require continued military pressure by Washington, working in concert with Israel. It will also need support from the Saudis in intelligence, air defense, surveillance, cyberwarfare, and special forces activities. Military-to-military cooperation between the Israelis and Saudis is shrouded in secrecy, but in the aftermath of the new US-Saudi defense pact, these operations could come out from the shadows.
The third important element of the US-Saudi relationship centers on the sale of the F-35 fighters. This will be controversial in two ways. One is that transferring such advanced technology always risks it falling into the hands of rivals, particularly China. Additionally, Israel is unlikely to be happy that the deal degrades the “qualitative military edge” that, under US law, it has enjoyed over its Arab neighbors for years. So Washington will need to manage that particular program carefully, with strong safeguards for protecting the technology and strong diplomacy to keep Saudi and Israeli security needs in balance.
Finally, there is cooperation on energy. There may be turbulent times ahead in world oil markets, with three major potential geopolitical scenarios: regime change in Venezuela, opening up its known oil reserves of more than 300 billion barrels; Moscow agreeing on a Ukraine peace deal that gets it out of oil and gas sanctions; and perhaps Iran making a deal to drop its pursuit of nuclear weapons and similarly finding sanctions eased. It’s unlikely that all three will happen — the equivalent of three cherries on the slot machine of geopolitics — but even if only one or two occur, markets will roil.
Beyond the glittering setting of the Oval Office and the tech-billionaire turnout at the evening soiree, the crown prince’s visit showed solid geopolitical interest at work. Now it’s time to channel his personal lightning in productive ways — to Gaza, Iran, defense and energy markets.
