Saudi crown prince to visit US seeking similar defence pact to Qatar: Report

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is headed to the White House next month to meet with the very same man he came to see on his last trip in 2018, US President Donald Trump. 

The Financial Times is reporting that the crown prince is looking to leave the meeting with a signed deal in hand, likely to be some sort of defence pact akin to the executive order Trump signed on Qatar, in the wake of Israel's attack on Doha last month. 

Qatar hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East at al-Udeid. While it is friendly with the Saudis now, it was the subject of a Saudi-led blockade from 2017-2021, which highlighted the ideological split among Arab and Muslim nations that were compelled to choose a side. 

Saudi Arabia hosts three US air force bases, largely near its western flank on the Red Sea.

Mohammed bin Salman is also seeking enhanced military and intelligence cooperation, given the upheaval in the region over the last two years, The Financial Times said. 

Perhaps most importantly, Saudi Arabia knows they have a very willing partner in this US president.

Trump's first foreign visit during his first and second terms was to Saudi Arabia. He has been vocal about the need to support the Arab Gulf states that spend the most money in the US, and, by extension, at his family-linked businesses. He has avoided criticism of the kingdom's human rights record. 

Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a staunchly pro-Israel private citizen who was brought in to help draft the Gaza ceasefire plan this month, has deep financial ties to the kingdom. His investment firm, Affinity Partners, recently bought the gaming giant Electronic Arts (EA) alongside Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. 

The Trump-Mohammed bin Salman relationship is a striking shift from relations with the Biden administration, when the crown prince was seen as a pariah, yet also ended up hosting the former president when he flew to Riyadh to effectively plead for a boost in the global oil supply.

The US had been reeling from two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, and Russia had invaded Ukraine just months earlier. 

Still, the two sides quietly worked toward bringing Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, but all talk of normalisation with Israel fell through following the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, and its subsequent genocide in Gaza against the Palestinians.

With a shaky ceasefire now in place, Trump's envoy for peace missions, Steve Witkoff, said last week he believes the circumstances are now favourable for countries in the region to consider normalisation again.

But Israel's widely-criticised conduct in Gaza - and its bombing of seven other countries over the last two years - makes it unlikely that November's meeting will expand the Abraham Accords, at least not yet. 

During his 2018 visit, the Saudi crown prince was feted across the country as he travelled from coast to coast, injecting tens of millions of dollars into startups and major corporations, and meeting with leading figures in politics, tech, and Hollywood. Mohammed bin Salman was seen as a transformative, modernising figure for Saudi Arabia.

That was before Middle East Eye and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018, widely believed to have been carried out on the orders of the crown prince.