What was the crown prince of , , asking for during his visit to ? The question was answered after the end of his meeting with the American president, during which important changes concerning the wider were launched.
Positive atmosphere of the meeting
The mood of the meeting was palpably positive right from the reception, where the Saudi leader’s arrival coincided with an air show and he was personally guided through the long line of presidential portraits by host Trump. A press conference followed, in which it was confirmed that the relations of the two traditional allies are moving to a new level.
Riyadh’s investment in the US increases
The crown prince committed to the increase from 600 billion to 1 trillion dollars, while when asked by a journalist whether it is possible to fulfill promises at a time when the price of oil is falling – thus affecting the state’s financial possibilities – he insisted, saying that “real opportunities are being created, not fake ones”, even opposing his country’s increased needs for computing networks and infrastructure. The statement excited Trump, who responded by saying, “We appreciate it very much.”
Cristiano Ronaldo in the Saudi mission
It is worth noting that Riyadh moved skillfully and at the level of impressions. As it became known from the BBC, the Saudi delegation was accompanied to the White House by a soccer superstar and the leader of Saudi Al Nasr. The presence of the former close associate of the American president and the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, at the official dinner hosted by the former in honor of bin Salman also caused a sensation.
Bin Salman’s reference to the Palestinian
The most interesting part of the meeting, however, at the level of bilateral relations, concerned bin Salman’s position on the Abraham Accords. It is recalled that these are diplomatic agreements established in 2020 that fully restored diplomatic relations between Israel and four Arab countries. “We want to be part of the agreements” were his exact words, however linking such a perspective to the existence of a road map for the existence of two states in the Palestinian.
For F-35 fighters
Regarding the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Riyadh, the messages issued by the US president were encouraging. “He is a great ally [σ.σ. η Σαουδική Αραβία]Israel is a great ally … in my opinion they are both at a level where they deserve to have the best material,” said Donald Trump, giving the “green light” to a process that still requires congressional approval and includes a series of demanding procedures.
The move is being interpreted as a balancing act on Trump’s part, with him seeking to make Riyadh a strong player to increase Washington’s leverage over Tel Aviv in an effort to ensure the implementation of his plan to end the war in , while keeping the door open to diplomatic normalization.
Israel’s reaction
Should Saudi Arabia enter the F-35 acquisition process, it would become the second country to acquire fifth-generation fighters in the Middle East after Israel. The news, as expected, was not received enthusiastically by Tel Aviv, with the Israeli military assessing in a document to the political world, as the danger of threatening the country’s air supremacy.
Other officials again, such as the former head of the IDF Yossi Alfer, emphasizes that any prediction about the military correlation of power is premature, stressing in fact – in a sarcastic tone – that Israel, Saudi Arabia and the USA lack leaders of sufficient strategic depth.
“The murder of Khashoggi was a huge mistake”
On the sidelines of the joint interview between Trump and bin Salman, the big “thorn” of the heinous murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was strangled and dismembered inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, in October 2018, made his comeback impetuous. In November of the same year, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in its report showed without spins bin Salman as a moral author.
At the White House again, which the prince was visiting for the first time after the above-mentioned atrocity, the American president moved in a completely different direction, saying that “the prince knew nothing about the murder” and adding that “many wanted Khashoggi dead.” He even criticized the journalist for the relevant question, saying that there is no need to “embarrass the guest of the White House with such questions”.
The widow of the murdered man, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, asked through the social networking platform X from bin Salman to apologize to her, while demanding compensation from the royal house. “There is no justification for my husband’s murder,” she added. The response of bin Salman, who from the Oval Office called the murder of Khashoggi “a huge mistake” and stressed that the system has been improved to ensure that such an incident does not happen again, can be taken as a resounding trumpet to bury any attempt to whitewash the heinous crime.
