Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will return to the US for the first time since 2018 next month to meet President Donald Trump, in a sign that he has largely restored his global reputation.
The visit, scheduled for Nov. 18 and 19, is expected to include the signing of several trade and investment agreements and potentially a defense pact. That deal would come in the form of an executive order rather than a treaty requiring congressional approval, mirroring the guarantee recently extended to Qatar following Israel’s strike on a Hamas compound in Doha in September. Riyadh, by contrast, signed a defense pact with Pakistan last month.
Talks between Trump and the crown prince are also expected to broach the subject of Saudi-Israeli normalization, which was under discussion before the Hamas attacks in October 2023 triggered two years of war.
Prince Mohammed has not been back to the US since the 2018 murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi, which badly ruptured his international standing and Saudi-US relations. Saudi Arabia hosted both former President Joe Biden and Trump since then on state visits, and the crown prince has participated in major global forums like the G20.