Just three years ago, the United States was publicly reconsidering its relationship with Saudi Arabia. President Joe Biden has vowed to ostracize Mohammed bin Salman. Even arms sales to one of America’s closest military partners were subject to review.
When the crown prince and de facto leader of Saudi Arabia stepped into the Oval Office this week, it was a different world. President Donald Trump defended the crown prince so forcefully that he scolded a reporter who confronted him about the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, saying he had “embarrassed his guest.”
Beyond the Oval Office theatrics, the administration’s announcement tells the true story of bin Salman’s remarkable rehabilitation in Washington. It also underscores Trump’s desire to move beyond the Khashoggi scandal and deepen ties with Saudi Arabia, which has promised nearly $1 trillion in U.S. investment and maintains business ties with his own family.
The visit also underscores the crown prince’s growing influence and ability to navigate great power conflicts to his advantage.
Perhaps his biggest victory was convincing Trump to drop one condition Washington had long insisted on before signing a major defense and trade deal with Riyadh: full normalization with Israel.
The change marks a further reversal from just a year ago, when the Biden administration maintained that a comprehensive U.S.-Saudi deal would move forward only if all three of its components – the bilateral defense trade agreement, normalization of Saudi-Israeli relations, and Israel’s commitment to a path to a Palestinian state – moved forward together. However, the framework stalled as Israel rejected the possibility of a Palestinian state and Saudi Arabia refused to soften its position.
The Trump administration now appears to have separated these elements and handed Riyadh most of what it has long sought in terms of defense, economy, and regional security.
This week, it designated Saudi Arabia as a major non-NATO ally, moved ahead with plans to sell it F-35 fighter jets “very similar” to those flown by Israel, and signed a new strategic defense pact.
In a nod to Riyadh’s singular focus on rebuilding its economy away from oil dependence, the two countries launched an AI cooperation framework that includes liquidating the sale of advanced chips to the kingdom, signed a critical minerals agreement, and opened the door to expanded nuclear energy cooperation.
Trump also agreed to help the crown prince end Sudan’s civil war, responding to bin Salman’s regional calls to reshape the security landscape in the Middle East.
President bin Salman insisted in the Oval Office that the new agreement benefits both the United States and Saudi Arabia.
“Today is a very important moment in our history,” bin Salman said Tuesday, sitting next to President Trump in the Oval Office.
Bin Salman received almost everything Saudi Arabia asked for from the United States, with two notable exceptions. It is a green light for domestic uranium enrichment for future nuclear power plants and a formal defense commitment.
The United States has long been reluctant to support Saudi Arabia’s nuclear program, which includes domestic enrichment of uranium (a process that can be refined to high levels to produce bomb-grade material), but CNN understands Riyadh’s reluctance to give up its rights because of its significant uranium reserves. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Fox News on Wednesday that the deal does not include domestic enrichment.
Among Washington’s Arab allies, Qatar has the strongest defense ties with the United States. Home to the largest US air base in the region, it was declared a major non-NATO ally in 2022 and received the strongest US security commitments among Arab countries this year through an executive order declaring that any armed attack against it would be considered a “threat to the peace and security of the United States.”
CNN understands that Saudi Arabia is seeking at least as deep a security engagement from Washington. A senior Saudi source told CNN that the kingdom wants a permanent agreement that would extend beyond President Trump’s term, and that the move would ultimately require Congressional approval. However, the White House statement did not mention the obligation to protect the kingdom.
“What[bin Salman]reportedly wants is a Senate-ratified defense commitment in line with the NATO Article V pledge,” Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment think tank, wrote, referring to NATO’s mutual defense clause. “The last time Washington did that was 65 years ago with the 1960 Japan-U.S. Treaty.”
Such agreements should be subject to litigation, he continued. “The United States previously went to war with Saudi Arabia to protect oil in the Gulf. A defense pact could serve as a deterrent against future predators, locking Saudi Arabia into a pro-American path for years to come and crowding out competitors Russia and especially China.”
Over the past few years, Saudi Arabia has indicated that it is willing to seek defense partners beyond the United States if the United States does not make a stronger commitment to its security. In late 2023, President bin Salman articulated this threat in an interview with Fox News, saying the United States “doesn’t want to see Saudi Arabia move its military from the United States to another location.”
In recent years, Riyadh has gradually improved its relations with China, culminating in the surprising rapprochement of Saudi Arabia and Iran in the Chinese capital in March 2023. The message was that the United States would be Riyadh’s first port of call, but there are others.
And earlier this year, President bin Salman sought to diversify his security partners, securing protection from nuclear-armed Pakistan, Riyadh’s closest Muslim ally. The mutual defense agreement marked a significant expansion of Saudi Arabia’s quest for security outside the United States.
In the halls of power in Washington, this hedge did not go unnoticed.
“I think this is a positive move,” Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on foreign policy, said of expanding defense cooperation between Riyadh and Washington. “Because it would pull Saudi Arabia in this direction as an ally of the United States rather than China, and it would also solidify normalization in that process in the post-Gaza world.”
The Eurasia Group think tank said in an analysis last week that U.S.-Saudi relations are currently driven more by great power competition than normalization with Israel.
“Saudi Arabia has become an important strategic partner in the United States’ competition with China,” the ministry said. “The ongoing strategic fusion between Washington and Riyadh will continue to be supported by the role Saudi Arabia can play in supporting the United States in areas critical to its competition with China.”
He added that Riyadh’s calculus on normalization is changing as the Saudi public’s sentiment towards Israel has become more negative and the kingdom has already secured many of the benefits it had expected from Washington.
Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he had received a “positive response” from President bin Salman regarding normalization with Israel, but added: “I would not use the word ‘commitment.'”
CNN’s Alison Main, Manu Raju and Casey Riddle contributed to this report.
