Trump prepares for visit by Saudi prince who rocked the kingdom
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump will host Saudi Arabia’s crown prince in Washington tomorrow, giving the president a receptive audience to denounce rival Iran and a chance to take stock of significant changes the prince is engineering in the kingdom.
Ten months after the last faceto-face meeting between Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed Salman, in Riyadh, the 71-yearold president and the 32-year-old strongman prince are expected to deepen an already warm and congenial relationship.
But they are also expected to take up major developments for Saudi Arabia, both internally and externally: the end of a ban on Saudi women driving, the unprecedented detention of dozens of people that was billed as a highlevel anti-corruption purge, Saudi involvement in the war in Yemen, and the crisis with the Gulf state of Qatar.
“It’s jaw-dropping how many policy changes the Saudis have pursued at home and in the region since that last meeting,” said Lori Plotkin Boghardt, a former CIA analyst now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Many of these changes have touched US security interests.” One example is the summit that the administration had hoped to host this year with the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which could be difficult to arrange given the continuing crisis with Qatar.
In June, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) began an air and sea boycott against Qatar, which they accuse of financing terrorism and being overly friendly with Iran.
Prince Mohammed, known by his initials MBS, was named crown prince that month by his father, King Salman.
Early on, the prince announced an ambitious ‘Vision 2030’ initiative to build an economy less dependent on oil, while luring more foreign investment.
The United States and Saudi Arabia are historic allies. Ever since Franklin Delano Roosevelt met with King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud on a US naval ship in the Suez Canal in 1945, every American president has carefully nurtured relations with the Saudi royal family. But the unstinting support Trump offered when he chose Riyadh as the destination of his first overseas trip as president brought the relationship to a new level.