President Trump will lobby Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to normalize relations with Israel when he rolls out the red carpet for the Middle East leader in Washington on Tuesday.
Securing diplomatic and commercial ties between the Middle East power and Israel would be a major coup for Mr. Trump.
It could prompt other Arab nations to join the Abraham Accords, a signature Trump project that normalized relations between Israel and Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates in 2020.
“We’re going to be discussing it. I hope that Saudi Arabia will be going into the Abraham Accords very shortly,” Mr. Trump told reporters over the weekend.
Getting a deal between the world’s only Jewish state and the world’s most influential Arab and Muslim state would be “transformative” and “historic,” said John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.
“It would cement Trump’s legacy as perhaps the most consequential American president ever in the Middle East. It would also be the stuff of a near-certain Nobel Peace Prize,” he said.
Mr. Trump sees Saudi Arabia as the linchpin of his plan to establish better ties between Israel and the Arab world. He recently said the accords became more attractive after a U.S. bomb strike crippled the nuclear ambitions of the Middle East’s other major power, Iran.
“We’ve had tremendous interest in the Abraham Accords since we put Iran out of business,” Mr. Trump said.
Yet the Saudis have been reluctant, particularly given concerns about the toll of Israel’s war in Gaza and Saudi demands for Palestinian statehood, which Israel rejects.
“Normalization just isn’t ripe yet. It won’t happen on this trip,” Mr. Hannah said. “The carnage of two years of war in Gaza has reset the table in terms of what [the crown prince] needs on resolving the Palestinian issue in order to justify playing the peace card with Israel, both with his own people and the broader Arab and Muslim world.”
The crown prince, known as MBS, is making his first White House visit since the 2018 killing and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident journalist, at a Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Formal investigations alleged the killing was premeditated with the crown prince’s involvement. The Saudi leader denied personal involvement and regained influence with the West, hosting major comedy and arts events and securing the rights to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup.
The Saudis are not receiving a formal state visit from Mr. Trump, but they will have a full-day program, including a bilateral meeting, lunch and a White House dinner.
The crown prince will bring a wish list. He wants to purchase F-35 fighter jets, hoping to overcome U.S. reservations about whether the technology could be stolen to slip to rogue nations like China.
“We will be doing that,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Monday.
The crown prince is trying to reassert Saudi Arabia’s role as America’s most vital Arab partner, particularly after Mr. Trump inked a September deal to guarantee the security and territorial integrity of Qatar, a much smaller Arab state.
MBS “embarrassingly finds himself playing catch-up to Qatar in the pecking order of U.S. security guarantees in the Middle East,” Mr. Hannah said. “Given Saudi Arabia’s storied eight-decade-old historic relationship with Washington, that’s not where the Gulf’s most influential and powerful state wants to find itself for long.”
The Saudis also want access to the most advanced American computer chips to establish Saudi Arabia as a hub for artificial intelligence.
The crown prince’s Vision 2030 plan calls for diversifying the Saudi economy so it is not entirely reliant on oil. He also pledged to usher in a “moderate, balanced Islam” in Saudi Arabia and ended a ban on women driving.
The nation welcomed major comedians and pop stars, such as Jennifer Lopez, to perform and supported LIV Golf. The soccer league’s high-paying clubs are drawing major stars like Cristiano Ronaldo away from Europe.
Critics say the Saudis are using “sports-washing” to obscure the Khashoggi episode and suppression of free expression or LGBTQ rights.
Former President Joseph R. Biden called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state over the Khashoggi killing, but later did an about-face and visited the crown prince during his term, a nod to the U.S.-Saudi alliance on energy and regional security.
Some lawmakers are not happy that Mr. Trump is putting out the welcome mat to the crown prince, pointing in part to the Khashoggi killing.
“Sadly, we have a president who prefers the Saudi model — an autocracy run by a trillionaire family — to democracy,” Sen. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent, said on X.
Mr. Trump has taken a more transactional approach to international relations, prioritizing economic progress for the U.S. over scolding foreign partners over human rights.
“We’re more than meeting,” Mr. Trump said Friday on a flight to Florida. “We’re honoring Saudi Arabia, the crown prince.”
Mr. Trump and the crown prince signed a strategic economic partnership agreement when they met in Riyadh in May.
The agreements included cooperation on energy, a letter of intent for future defense capabilities and a memorandum of understanding on mineral resources, among other topics.
At the time, the White House said the deals signed would be “historic and transformative for both countries and represent a new golden era of partnership.”
Saudi Arabia also signaled earlier this year that it was prepared to invest $600 billion into the U.S. over Mr. Trump’s tenure.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump will be looking for new economic opportunities and prod the Saudis to take a bigger hand in rebuilding Gaza.
The White House visit, in itself, might be the most significant development yet in the Trump-MBS alliance.
“It’s a huge victory and achievement for MBS — from pariah to being feted and celebrated on the White House lawn and at the equivalent of a State dinner,” Mr. Hannah said. “It’s an emphatic statement about the significant — and growing — geopolitical weight of Saudi Arabia, warts and all, and of the historic steps MBS has taken through his transformational program of economic, social, and cultural reform to rapidly expand the Kingdom’s diplomatic power and influence both regionally and globally.”
• Mallory Wilson contributed to this report.
