Trump Welcomes Saudi Crown Prince to White House in First Trip Since Khashoggi Killing. Here's What's At Stake

President Donald Trump will welcome Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the White House on Tuesday, marking the Saudi leader’s first visit to the country since Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed and dismembered by Saudi agents at what the American intelligence community later concluded was bin Salman’s order.  The meeting sets the stage for discussions on multibillion-dollar business deals, nuclear agreements, and efforts toward normalizing ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Trump has maintained a strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia’s de-facto ruler, known as MBS, despite the global condemnation sparked in 2018 when the Crown Prince was revealed to have been involved in the assassination of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. MBS arrives at the White House having recast himself as peace broker of U.S.-Middle East affairs, following his pushes for a Gaza ceasefire deal and conversations with Iran urging them to reach a nuclear deal with Trump. For Trump, under pressure at home over the Epstein files and a series of domestic setbacks, the meeting is a chance to revive his image as a global dealmaker; for MBS, a moment to present himself as Washington’s indispensable partner in a volatile region. Here’s what’s at stake in Tuesday’s historic meeting. Trump’s Ties in the Middle East Trump’s family has significantly grown its business operations in the Middle East over the years, combining his personal ventures with the interests of the Administration during negotiations in Arab states.  On a tour of the Gulf states in May, Trump received opulent welcomes from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, who the White House said pledged $2 trillion for the U.S. economy in combined deals.  In Saudi Arabia alone, Trump signed $600 billion in deals related to AI investments, security partnerships, and energy in “the largest set of commercial agreements on record between the two countries,” the White House stated.  “The international community already knows that the US-Saudi relationship under Trump is very cozy, and that was clearly on display publicly at the Riyadh meeting in May,” Gregory Aftandilian, an expert on Middle East studies at American University, tells TIME. “We all know Trump’s foreign policy is quite transactional.” The Trump family also has multiple personal investments in the region, including a luxury hotel in Dubai, a residential tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and a villa complex in Qatar.  MBS is meanwhile involved in a development project with Trump that would transform the Saudi town of Diriyah into a high end space filled with hotels, stores and office spaces, although nothing official has been announced. Arms and nuclear agreements On the eve of the visit, Trump said he would sell Saudi Arabia F-35 advanced fighter jets, one of the world’s most advanced aircraft. “I will say that we will be doing that,” Trump told reporters. It is understood that Saudi Arabia has requested the sale of 48 F-35 jets. Pentagon officials have previously expressed concern that the technology could be compromised by China’s security partnerships with the country.  The jets would be sold for billions of dollars, adding to the bill of the Saudi state, which is the biggest buyer of American weapons.  “We reviewed the Saudi-US relations and explored ways to bolster our strategic cooperation,” Prince Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi defense minister, wrote on social media last week, saying that he had recently met with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy. Also at stake in Washington is a potential defense agreement that would provide security guarantees to Saudi Arabia and a deal that would grant the country access to nuclear technology and perhaps allow it to enrich uranium.   Energy Secretary Chris Wright told journalists in the Saudi capital Riyadh in April that the deal would allow the Saudi kingdom to develop a “commercial nuclear power industry” and that he saw a “pathway” towards the deal. As the world’s largest oil exporter, MBS has also positioned himself as the architect of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 plan—a sweeping effort to diversify the economy, reduce carbon emissions, and recast the kingdom as a leader in renewable energy and green innovation. Relations with Israel In return, Trump is expected to press the Crown Prince to normalize relations with Israel—a goal that has long eluded Washington. Trump has talked about his push to extend his first term Abraham Accords, which formalized commercial and diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco. “I hope that Saudi Arabia will be going into the Abraham Accords very shortly,” the President said to the media aboard Air Force One on Friday. King Salman, the Crown Prince’s father, opposed the country joining the Abraham Accords during Trump’s first term, while MBS has previously refused to join without the establishment of a Palestinian state. Even so, Trump has continued to express confidence that MBS will eventually sign on.  “We have a lot of people joining now the Abraham Accords, and hopefully we’re going to get Saudi Arabia very soon,” Trump said this month in a speech to business leaders and Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington, Princess Reema Bandar Al Saud.  Aftandilian, however, cautions against that optimism. “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he says. “The Netanyahu government is dead set against any Palestinian statehood and Mohammed bin Salman knows that as long as Netanyahu’s the prime minister, they won’t even begin a process towards statehood.” MBS will instead commit to providing aid to repair the destruction caused by the war with Israel in Gaza, Aftandilian says. “The one thing that I’m counting on probably is the Saudi financial commitment towards Gaza reconstruction,” he says, predicting the situation will be “front and center” at the meeting. During the Biden Administration, MBS signaled openness to establishing diplomatic relations with Israel in exchange for nuclear resources and security guarantees—a formula that Trump now appears eager to revive. From pariah to power broker The Crown Prince’s grip on power has insulated him from international prosecution. In 2022, a lawsuit was dismissed by a U.S. federal court after the State Department ruled that MBS had immunity in the killing of Khashoggi. MBS rose to power when he ousted his older cousin Mohammed bin Nayef in a palace coup, disturbing the hierarchy of governance by seniority. Now, his face dominates the country, where he has been viewed as a more progressive leader who vowed in 2017 to present a more “moderate, balanced Islam” to the world.  Now, as MBS returns to Washington, both he and Trump are using the moment to reaffirm their dominance at home and on the world stage.