Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS)’s scheduled meeting with President Trump at the White House this week can only be described as a full circle moment. This will be the first trip to Washington taken by the Saudi leader since March 2018. Relations with the US became strained by, among other things, the October 2018 assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Against the backdrop of a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, the agenda this week includes US-Saudi economic and security cooperation, as well as the expansion of the Abraham Accords. Bin Salman’s visit represents the renewal of bilateral relations and further solidifies Saudi Arabia as a key strategic partner of the United States. It remains to be seen whether this partnership can be leveraged toward full implementation of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, Israeli regional integration, and long-term stability for the wider Middle East.
The road to Saudi’s rehabilitation since 2018 has been a slow one, despite the robust, longstanding economic and security relationship between Washington and Riyadh. In July 2022, Bin Salman hosted President Biden at the Al Salam Royal Palace in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and the two leaders met again in September 2023 at the G20 Summit in New Delhi, India. The Jeddah trip was explicitly intended to reset US-Saudi relations after Biden had initially vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” – following his administration’s release of an intelligence report in February 2021 asserting that MbS approved the killing of Khashoggi. Instead of penalizing Bin Salman personally and risking a total rupture of relations with Riyadh, the Biden Administration opted for sanctions against other Saudi officials associated with the killing of Khashoggi and instituted a “Khashoggi Ban” for those who targeted dissidents at the behest of foreign governments. In doing so, the US determined that Saudi Arabia is a key strategic partner in terms of its vast access to capital and combating terrorism, and that severing its relationship with the Kingdom would stymie Israeli regional integration and push the Saudis toward China.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, under the leadership of MbS has spent the past several years pursuing Vision 2030 to transform the Saudi economy, governance, and society, and establish the Kingdom as a global economic and geopolitical power. Riyadh has enacted significant reforms, notably lifting in 2018 the decades-old ban on women driving. Prior to the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023, Bin Salman had also confirmed that Saudi Arabia and Israel “get closer” every day to normalizing relations.
Since his re-election, President Trump – who has a penchant for transactional diplomacy – has put a renewed US-Saudi relationship firmly at the center of his administration’s broader Middle East policy. In May 2025, Trump visited Riyadh (along with Doha and Abu Dhabi) in the first major overseas trip of his second term. Speaking there at the US-Saudi Investment Forum, he announced a commitment by the Kingdom to invest $600 billion in the United States, building upon the multibillion-dollar agreements with Saudi Arabia that he forged in his first term. Trump also repeated his call for Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel, despite consistent statements by Saudi Arabia throughout the Gaza war that it would not consider doing so until irrevocable progress is made toward Palestinian statehood.
MbS arrives in Washington this week, representing a region that looks fundamentally different than even just a few months ago. Since Trump’s visit to Riyadh, Israel with US assistance undertook a sustained campaign against the Iranian regime and its nuclear capabilities inside Iran. Additionally, a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was finally reached in October, opening the door to renewed discussion of normalization but also setting in motion an enormous stability and reconstruction effort in Gaza to which President Trump hopes Saudi Arabia will be a major contributor. And just last week, Trump hosted interim Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa at the White House, capping a stunning path to normalization set in motion by MbS in Riyadh – where he successfully lobbied Trump to lift sanctions on the one-time jihadist and, in doing so, helped place Saudi Arabia at the center of the Trump Administration’s Middle East strategy.
Despite Trump having reiterated his hope in recent days that Saudi Arabia will soon join the Abraham Accords, it is unlikely that significant progress will be made toward that goal in the near term. Riyadh has reaffirmed its position that without a credible pathway to Palestinian statehood, Saudi Arabia will not normalize relations with Israel. Instead, this week’s visit is expected to focus heavily on continuing the progress made back in May on expanding the US-Saudi commercial relationship. It will also further solidify the Kingdom as a key strategic partner of the US.
Trump is expected to host a dinner at the White House in honor of MbS. And the two leaders are expected to announce major new deals, including a new US-Saudi defense pact and potential progress toward advanced weapons transfers and civilian-nuclear cooperation. Additionally, a US-Saudi Investment Forum will take place on November 19 at the Kennedy Center, although it is unclear whether Trump and Bin Salman will directly participate. However they unfold, these events will represent the culmination of the post-Khashoggi rehabilitation of the Kingdom, paving the way for enhanced US-Saudi economic and security cooperation, including on issues surrounding Iran and China.
This week’s visit comes amidst continued violations of Phase I of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, further complicating the already thorny issues that await in Phase II such as establishing an International Stabilization Force. The Trump Administration has, to the surprise of some, dedicated consistent focus to ensuring progress continues, including by standing up a significant combined US civilian-military presence to oversee the work. Trump seemingly understands that wider regional stability hinges on preventing future violence between Israel and the Palestinians and creating a pathway to Palestinian statehood. With MbS all but certain to double down on that message, it appears likely that Trump will emerge from the discussions with renewed focus on pressuring both the Israeli government and Hamas to move forward with Phase II implementation.
Israel, meanwhile, is likely to keep a wary eye not just on how Saudi Arabia will shape and contribute to those next steps, but also on the potential implications of an expanding and more institutionalized US-Saudi defense relationship. While such cooperation between the US and Saudi Arabia would conceivably support Israeli security by serving as a greater counterbalance to Iran, the provision of advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia is nonetheless likely to erode Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge over its neighbors – a concept that is still enshrined in US law but seems no longer to serve as a check on US relations with the Gulf. MbS has proven to have Trump’s ear on the full range of regional issues, so whatever comes out of their discussions will surely be consequential.
Washington this week will be full of ceremonial pomp, glitzy dinners, and enormous investment agreements. But in some ways, particularly for Israel, it will be but a mile-marker on a much longer journey. Against a persistently complicated regional backdrop, normalization between Israel and its neighbors via expansion of the Abraham Accords will continue to be a foundation of the Trump Administration’s policy in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia remains the big prize for Trump in his quest to become the “Peace President.” For that, there are no real shortcuts. Especially in the aftermath of the Gaza war, there is unlikely to be major progress on this front without real movement toward addressing the next steps of the peace plan in Gaza and a more credible direction toward Palestinian statehood.