Trump-MBS summit: Good feelings, real commitments, and unresolved questions

Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince, prime minister, and main decision-maker in Saudi Arabia — who is colloquially also known as MBS — left Washington, DC, and his summit with President Donald Trump with a number of promises made and commitments received but several questions yet unanswered. The multi-day visit this week consolidated the bilateral relationship, confirming that Riyadh still sees Washington as its primary partner in military, security, and economic matters. It also served as a personal vindication for the crown prince. Many of the Americans now feting him had criticized and shunned him for his involvement in the 2018 killing of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. President Trump was never one of those Americans and made it very clear he did not consider the killing a big deal, dismissing it by noting that “things happen.” The crown prince handled the press question about the Khashoggi killing with more tact and sensitivity than the president did, an indication that he was growing into his role on the world stage, while still maintaining his authoritarian grip on power and politics in Saudi Arabia.

President Trump agreed to sell Saudi Arabia the United States’ top-of-the-line fighter jet, the F-35 Lightning II. A large weapons purchase announcement is par for the course in the history of the Saudi-American relationship. Nothing new there. As was the case with some past big arms deals to Arab states, Israel worries that the sale could harm its military edge in the region. Nevertheless, given Trump’s commitment to maximizing big-ticket deals, the Saudis are likely to get something close to the top-of-the-line version of the jet fighter, though it will take years before the delivery happens. Trump told the press that Israel would be “very happy” with the result, implying that he will be able to use the F-35 sale as leverage to push the Saudis toward normalizing relations with Israel and joining the Abraham Accords. MBS made clear he is open to such a move, but only if Israel is willing to accept a diplomatic pathway toward Palestinian statehood. That is not in the cards in the short or even medium term.

The two countries, along with a number of private American companies, committed to joint ventures in the artificial intelligence (AI) field that, if realized, could lead to the construction of a number of massive data centers in Saudi Arabia. That elevated level of American private-sector engagement in Saudi Arabia’s high-tech sector is new, but extensive bilateral commercial dealings actually harken back to the founding of ties between the two countries. American oil companies built the Saudi oil industry in the 1930s and 1940s and kept the kingdom in oil money until the Saudis took over those operations themselves in the 1980s. If the ambitious plans laid out during this week’s summit come to fruition, American AI firms in Saudi Arabia could provide the kind of glue to the bilateral relationship that the American oil majors represented in earlier decades. Real economic interdependence would be a more certain signpost of an American commitment to Saudi security than any White House executive order on security cooperation.

It is interesting that MBS’s high-profile visit did not appear to generate any new initiatives on the various diplomatic and security issues that the Trump administration is dealing with in the Middle East. The Saudis made no concrete commitments on participation — either financially or militarily — in Trump’s Gaza stabilization initiative. As mentioned above, the Saudis did not move toward joining the Abraham Accords. The civil war in Yemen does not seem to have been mentioned. Iran also did not appear on the public agenda. No new American steps, like further sanctions relief, aimed at the stabilization of the new Syrian regime, an important Saudi goal, were announced. The crown prince encouraged Trump to personally insert himself into the crisis in Sudan. We will see what comes of that. All told, Middle East issues were, if not absent, far down the list in terms of importance at this summit. Oil, so central to the bilateral relationship for decades, also did not appear on the public agenda of the talks.  The fact that oil prices are hovering around $60 per barrel, relatively low by recent standards, undoubtedly took the edge off that issue for the Trump administration. The absence of both oil and regional security as well as diplomatic issues from the top line of the talks in itself marks an interesting shift in the bilateral relationship.

The range of agreements in areas old and new that came out of the Saudi crown prince’s meetings in Washington testifies to the continuing US commitment to Saudi Arabia and the American security role in the Gulf more generally. It also signals that Riyadh still sees Washington as its primary security and technology partner, even as its economic and political relationship with Beijing continues to grow. Within that reality, however, this past week’s summit also leaves several issues uncertain and questions unanswered, as the detailed terms of the various agreements and promises have not been released to the public. In three areas in particular questions remain:

• The crown prince told Trump in the press briefing of November 18 that Saudi Arabia would invest $1 trillion in the American economy. He certainly knows how to make his host happy. MBS cleverly did not set a timetable for that investment. The gross domestic product of Saudi Arabia in 2025 will likely be about $1.25 trillion. Its sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, has a total of about $1 trillion in assets under management, and it is already reducing some of its foreign exposure to deal with domestic projects in the current low oil price environment. Saudi Arabia will clearly be buying American in the coming years, from computer chips to fighter jets. However, the time frame for that $1 trillion investment commitment might be measured in decades rather than years.
   

• During the summit, President Trump designated Saudi Arabia a Major Non-NATO Ally, and the two countries signed a Strategic Defense Agreement but did not release the text. In the wake of Israel’s attack on Hamas targets in Doha last September, Trump issued an executive order to defend Qatar from foreign attack, and there was speculation about whether he would make a similar commitment to MBS in conjunction with the latter’s visit. We do not know if the new US-Saudi agreement includes that kind of language, nor do we know exactly what kind of assurances the president gave the crown prince on this issue. Saudis recall that when Iran attacked their oil facilities in September 2019, during the first Trump administration, Washington did nothing in response. They also know that the Biden administration was negotiating a defense treaty with Riyadh, which President Joe Biden planned on submitting to the Senate for ratification, when the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel derailed that initiative. The fact that the summit ended without a clear public commitment by President Trump to defend Saudi Arabia from foreign attack is a setback for Riyadh amidst the generally successful results of the meetings.
   

• The two countries also signed a Joint Declaration on the Completion of Negotiations on Civilian Nuclear Energy Cooperation. That word salad is an indication that an actual agreement on nuclear energy is far from complete. Once again, the text of the declaration was not released to the public. Saudi Arabia has openly stated on numerous occasions that it reserves the right to enrich uranium for export as part of its nuclear ambitions. US law requires that countries forego enrichment in order to purchase American technology and know-how in the nuclear field. Saudi neighbor the United Arab Emirates, among many other countries that have signed such agreements with the United States on nuclear development, consented to this limitation in the development of its nuclear plants. The lack of a Saudi-American nuclear accord at the summit indicates that the enrichment issue, a key element of American non-proliferation of nuclear weapons policy, remains a sticking point between Washington and Riyadh.

The recently concluded Saudi-American summit was undoubtedly a success for MBS and Trump. It ratified the historically close relationship between the two countries, quieted Saudi worries about the American commitment to their security, and advanced Washington’s goal of solidifying Saudi Arabia in the American technology orbit, even as Saudi economic ties with China continue to grow. The good feelings generated by the crown prince’s visit notwithstanding, important questions remain about how Riyadh and Washington are going to deal with the immediate diplomatic issues facing them in the Middle East, about the extent of potential cooperation on nuclear issues, and, perhaps most centrally, about the nature and extent of the American defense commitment to Saudi Arabia.

F. Gregory Gause III is a Visiting Scholar at the Middle East Institute. He is also a professor emeritus of international affairs at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University.

Photographer: Nathan Howard/Politico/Bloomberg via Getty Images