For days leading up to his visit, diplomats and Middle East watchers were placing bets on whether Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman would subject himself to one of US President Donald Trump’s notorious, and often raw, Oval Office press briefings.
Payments are now due in full.
For about 40 minutes, Trump and the crown prince fielded reporters’ questions on almost every topic, from the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi to AI chips and arms sales – all with the cameras rolling.
Trump himself bragged about the level of access. “There has never been transparency like this. We didn’t put restrictions,” Trump said, full of bravado.
The unscripted Oval Office exchange between Trump and Mohammed bin Salman offered a rare window to observe the 40-year-old head of the Arab world’s only G-20 economy.
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“He is twiddling his thumbs a lot,” one European diplomat told Middle East Eye over text message.
“Seems like he is bored,” a US official texted. “More likeable than 2018. For Sure. Khashoggi coming!” they said, referring to a question on the killing of the journalist.
“Fake news!” Trump shouted when an ABC reporter asked about a CIA report that said the crown prince ordered the murder of Khashoggi in 2018, as well as allegations that the Saudi government was linked to the 9/11 attackers.
“As far as this gentleman is concerned, he’s done a phenomenal job,” Trump said, pointing to the crown prince. “You are mentioning someone [Khashoggi] that is extremely controversial. A lot of people did not like that gentleman that you’re talking about…he knew nothing about it. You don’t have to embarrass our guest.”
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The Saudi leader answered more diplomatically.
Citing “CIA documents”, the crown prince said: “Osama Bin Laden used Saudi people in that event for one main purpose…to destroy the American-Saudi relation.”
He called the murder of Khashoggi, which the same CIA said he ordered, “painful”.
“We’ve did all the right steps of investigation…we’ve improved our system to be sure that nothing happened like that,” he said. “And it’s painful, and it’s a huge mistake. And we are doing our best that this doesn’t happen again,” he said.
The crown prince came armed with an investment pledge to the US of nearly $1 trillion, including in artificial intelligence and rare-earth materials. And that pledge earned him Trump’s defence in front of the press.
The press briefing was in stark contrast to when Trump delighted in browbeating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa.
‘Trump doesn’t fist pump’
Trump drew a sharp contrast between his relationship with the crown prince and former US President Joe Biden, who pledged to make the Saudi leader a pariah, only to court him for help taming energy prices and navigating Israel’s war on Gaza. Biden, famously, fist-pumped the Saudi leader in 2022 during a visit to Riyadh, in an awkwardly choreographed attempt to save face.
‘Trump doesn’t give a fist pump. I grab that hand. I don’t give a hell where that hand’s been’
– US President Donald Trump
“Trump doesn’t give a fist pump. I grab that hand. I don’t give a hell where that hand’s been,” Trump said.
The visit was tightly choreographed and negotiated in advance. While diplomats and US officials worked on preparation, many bemoaned their own lack of access.
Trump has reduced the staff at the National Security Council and doesn’t even have an ambassador in Saudi Arabia. And he likes it that way.
“We talk at night. We can talk. I can call him almost any time,” Trump said, referring to his penchant to go one-on-one with his Saudi counterpart, apparently with support from staff. “He goes, ‘Hi, how are you doing?’ It’s like, the craziest times.”
Reverse flattery: 1,800 jobs
On the surface, the Oval Office meeting was another round of Trump diplomacy, full of rows with some journalists, braggadocio and off-the-cuff comments that often speak truths. When the editor-in-chief of Arab News introduced himself, Trump quipped, “It should be a friendly question.”
Saudi Arabia tightly controls its local media.
But when peeled back and compared to other visits, the dynamics in the Oval Office were very different. They point to Riyadh’s success in rebalancing a relationship that dates back to WWII and to the shifting global power balance.
First, the flattery between Trump and world leaders is usually one-sided. That includes the heads of Nato countries, who have lobbied Trump to side with Ukraine over Russia, and men like the prime minister of Pakistan, who nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
‘I know Israel would like you to get planes of reduced caliber. I don’t think that makes you too happy’
– US President Donald Trump
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman showed he wields massively more influence than western heads of state and others in the region by getting Trump to flatter him directly to the American people.
On cue, Trump called out a representative of GE Vernova to explain how Saudi Arabia is funding American jobs – notably not in the defence industry.
“We make the gas turbines that are supporting US needs as well as the Saudi Arabian needs,” the GE man said. “Real jobs, $300m in gas investment…that translates to roughly 1,800 jobs.”
Of course, Saudi Arabia and the US unveiled $142bn in defence sales when Trump visited the kingdom in May.
Trump said that the US would sell advanced F-35s to Saudi Arabia earlier this week, brushing off pro-Israel voices who wanted him to condition the sale on normalisation with Israel and some China hawks.
Defence analysts have said that the key question for Riyadh is not whether Trump will approve the sale, but how much of the sophisticated technology that enhances the F-35 Trump would allow Saudi Arabia to have.
“You are asking me, is it the same? I think it’s going to be pretty similar,” Trump said, referring to Israel’s F-35s and what he will sell the kingdom. “I know they would like you to get planes of reduced calibre. I don’t think that makes you too happy…I think they [Saudi Arabia and Israel] are both at a level where they should get top of the line.”
‘We had the pilots right here’
The Saudi crown prince was at his most awkward when Trump bragged about bombing the Islamic Republic of Iran over the summer and inviting the US soldiers who dropped the bombs to grace the same room as the Saudi leader.
“We’ve always been on the same side of every issue,” Trump said. “I think we’ve done a great job in wiping out the nuclear capacity of Iran…No other president would have done it. We had the pilots in the Oval Office right here. We were celebrating a very successful attack.”
‘We aren’t creating fake opportunities to please America or please President Trump’
– Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
The crown prince, who was poised, if not relaxed, for much of the meeting, grimaced profusely, smiled awkwardly with his head down and stuck out his chin in an apparent nervous tic.
The uncomfortable response to Trump’s victory lap speaks to Riyadh’s recent efforts to de-escalate tensions with Iran. The kingdom, like other Gulf states, went to great lengths over the last two years to distance itself from Israeli and, later, US attacks on the Islamic Republic.
When Israel was locked in war with Iran over the summer, Saudi Arabia refused to share ballistic missile interceptors, MEE reported. The kingdom also lobbied Trump to stop US attacks on the Houthis, who receive arms and training from Iran.
The item at the top of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s shopping list – AI chips, ones the US has, perhaps, been most reluctant to sell him. Saudi Arabia has the oil, solar energy, and potentially the natural gas to power data centres cheaply at a time when US consumers are angry over higher electricity costs.
Several deals for the kingdom to purchase AI chips were announced in May, but no cash or products have changed hands.
“We are working on that. We are working on that right now,” Trump said when asked about approving the export of advanced AI chips to the kingdom. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said a deal could be announced later in the day.
Middle Eastern leaders have taken heat for decades over buying expensive weapons systems from the US, in what many see as moves to please the defence industry and US politicians. The crown prince framed the purchase of AI chips as part of a new US-Gulf relationship.
“We aren’t creating fake opportunities to please America or please President Trump. Saudi Arabia has a huge need of computing power…we gonna spend in the short term around $50bn consuming those semiconductors for our needs,” the crown prince said.
