Saudi Crown Prince Welcomed to DC      11/18 06:13

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump is set to fete Crown Prince 
Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday when the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia makes 
his first White House visit since the 2018 killing of Washington Post 
journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.

   The U.S.-Saudi relationship had been sent into a tailspin by the operation 
targeting Khashoggi, a fierce critic of the kingdom, that U.S. intelligence 
agencies later determined Prince Mohammed likely directed the agents to carry 
out.

   But seven years later, the dark clouds over the relationship have been 
cleared away. And Trump has tightened his embrace of the 40-year-old crown 
prince he views as an indispensable player in shaping the Middle East in the 
decades to come. Prince Mohammed, for his part, denies involvement in the 
killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen and Virginia resident.

   Khashoggi will likely be an afterthought as the two leaders unveil billions 
of dollars in deals and huddle with aides to discuss the tricky path ahead in a 
volatile Middle East. They'll end their day with an evening White House soiree, 
organized by first lady Melania Trump, to honor the prince.

   "They have been a great ally," Trump said of the Saudis on the eve of the 
visit.

   Fighter jets and business deals

   Ahead of Prince Mohammed's arrival, Trump announced he has agreed to sell 
the Saudis F-35 fighter jets despite some concerns within the administration 
that the sale could lead to China gaining access to the U.S. technology behind 
the advanced weapon system.

   Trump's announcement is also surprising because some in the Republican 
administration have been wary about upsetting Israel's qualitative military 
edge over its neighbors, especially at a time when Trump is depending on 
Israeli support for the success of his Gaza peace plan.

   But the unexpected move comes at a moment when Trump is trying to nudge the 
Saudis toward normalizing relations with Israel.

   The president in his first term had helped forge commercial and diplomatic 
ties between Israel and Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates through 
an effort dubbed the Abraham Accords.

   Trump sees expansion of the accords as essential to his broader efforts to 
build stability in the Middle East after the two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

   And getting Saudi Arabia -- the largest Arab economy and the birthplace of 
Islam -- to sign on would create an enormous domino effect, he argues. The 
president in recent weeks has even predicted that once Saudi Arabia signs on to 
the accords, "everybody" in the Arab world "goes in."

   But the Saudis have maintained that a clear path toward Palestinian 
statehood must first be established before normalizing relations with Israel 
can be considered. The Israelis, meanwhile, remain steadfastly opposed to the 
creation of a Palestinian state.

   The U.N. Security Council on Monday approved a U.S. plan for Gaza that 
authorizes an international stabilization force to provide security in the 
devastated territory and envisions a possible future path to an independent 
Palestinian state.

   Assurances on US military support

   The leaders certainly will have plenty to talk about including maintaining 
the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, mutual concerns about Iran's malign behavior, 
and a brutal civil war in Sudan.

   And the Saudis are looking to receive formal assurances from Trump defining 
the scope of U.S. military protection for the kingdom, even though anything not 
ratified by Congress can be undone by the next president.

   Prince Mohammed, 40, who has stayed away from the West after the Khashoggi 
killing, is also looking to reestablish his position as a global player and a 
leader determined to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil by investing in 
sectors like mining, technology and tourism.

   To that end, Saudi Arabia is expected to announce a multi-billion dollar 
investment in U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure, and the two 
countries will lay out details about new cooperation in the civil nuclear 
energy sector, according to a senior Trump administration official who was not 
authorized to comment publicly ahead of the formal announcement.

   "I think the challenge for us as Americans is to try to convince someone 
like MBS that the trajectory of Saudi Arabia ought to look more like South 
Korea than, say, China," said Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern 
Studies at Princeton University, speaking at a Carnegie Endowment for 
International Peace event on Monday. "That, ultimately, political repression of 
political dissent is not good for business. It's not good for attracting 
foreign direct investment, it's not good for your image if you're a tourism 
destination."

   But this week's warm embrace by Trump might provide a counterfactual to that 
argument for the crown prince.

   In addition to White House pomp, the two nations are also planning an 
investment summit at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday that will include the 
heads of Salesforce, Qualcomm, Pfizer, the Cleveland Clinic, Chevron and 
Aramco, Saudi Arabia's national oil and natural gas company, where even more 
deals with the Saudis could be announced.