DUBAI—Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman emerged from a White House visit this week as, in President Trump’s view, the undisputed leader of the Arab world.
No Arab leader in recent memory has received such a lavish welcome from an American president—including a red-carpet welcome, a parade of horses and a black-tie dinner—and certainly not an authoritarian leader with such a scrutinized human-rights record. In the Oval Office, Trump even defended Mohammed from questions about the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, which the Central Intelligence Agency concluded was orchestrated by him.
Crowning the visit: the designation of Riyadh as a major non-NATO ally and a promise that the U.S. would sell Saudi Arabia its most advanced jet fighter, the F-35.
In doing so, Trump sent a clear signal that the two countries’ relationship was no longer about Saudi oil for American security and that the U.S. is elevating Saudi Arabia as a power in its own right in the Middle East, six years after President Joe Biden labeled him “pariah” for Khashoggi’s killing.
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