MAGA meets MBS

MORE than a few wags in Riyadh have quipped that Donald Trump is America’s first Saudi president. He is certainly the kingdom’s most simpatico counterpart in the Oval Office since the dawn of the century. Barack Obama resented the Saudis as “free riders”. Joe Biden promised to make them “pariahs”. Even George W. Bush, who strolled hand-in-hand with Saudi princes on his ranch in Texas, was prone to giving them irksome lectures about democracy and human rights.

They hear none of that from Mr Trump. His style of court politics, his mixing of family and state business, even his taste in interior decor, all look familiar to Saudi royals. They will give Mr Trump a warm welcome when he arrives in the kingdom on May 13th, his first stop on a three-country Gulf tour—nothing like the chilly fist-bump they offered Mr Biden in 2022. Yet the public bonhomie is a façade. In Mr Trump’s second term, as in his first, America and Saudi Arabia cannot agree on what they want in the Middle East.

In 2017 that was because the kingdom was an agent of chaos. It had invaded Yemen two years before. Muhammad bin Salman, the crown prince, would go on to blockade neighbouring Qatar, kidnap a Lebanese prime minister, imprison scores of princes and businessmen in a Riyadh hotel and to approve an operation which led to a journalist being dismembered in Istanbul. Mr Trump had to deal with the consequences. The embargo of Qatar caused a schism between America’s closest allies in the Middle East.

Now it is Mr Trump rattling the region (and the world). He started bombing Yemen in March. Around the same time, he let Israel abandon a ceasefire and resume its war in Gaza. He has kept sanctions on post-Assad Syria. Then there are the ructions he has caused the global economy: the price of Saudi Arabia’s main export has fallen by 22% since Mr Trump took office.

When Mr Trump visited Saudi Arabia in 2017, the kingdom wanted American support for a forthcoming offensive to retake Hodeidah, a port city in Yemen that had been captured by the Houthis, a Shia militia. The president and his allies were hesitant, fearing that a fight for Yemen’s biggest port would cause famine in a country that imports 90% of its food. Times have changed. On May 5th, a week before Mr Trump’s second visit, America helped Israeli jets bomb Hodeidah. The Saudis stayed silent; it was their turn to worry about the consequences of a conflict.

Those fears have abated, at least for now. On May 6th Mr Trump paused his seven-week bombing campaign against the Houthis. Still, the episode was striking. The Saudis have done an about-turn since 2017: now they are the ones focused on maintaining stability in the region.

Prince Muhammad has been the kingdom’s de facto ruler for eight years. Perhaps with age comes wisdom, or at least caution. He is also getting better advice. His first foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, was the first commoner to hold the job since 1962. That meant he was little more than a front man for the crown prince’s hawkish impulses. Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud, the foreign minister since 2019, has been a moderating influence. As a prince himself, he has more room to shape policy.

Most of all, Prince Muhammad’s priorities have changed. He needs to safeguard Vision 2030, his ambitious plan to overhaul the Saudi economy. That is incompatible with trying to reshape the Middle East by force: it is hard to attract tourists while ballistic missiles whiz overhead.

Saudi foreign policy is now more velvet glove than iron fist. Along with Qatar, it has helped pay off Syria’s $15m debt to the World Bank, a small but symbolic step that will unlock more aid. It should soon lift a years-old ban on its citizens travelling to Lebanon, a sign of confidence in that country’s new government. It ended its war in Yemen and its feud with Qatar, and initiated a rapprochement with Iran.

America is still trying to figure out its priorities, a process that begins anew with each change of president. Does it want to end the region’s wars, as Mr Trump has promised? Or to keep the boot on Iran and its proxies, as some of his advisers prefer (and the strikes in Yemen were meant to do)? Mr Trump sometimes talks about wanting to forge a prosperous Middle East. His tariffs, aid cuts and sanctions will create the opposite.

What’s the new deal?

Since its inception in 1945, the American-Saudi relationship has been transactional. The Saudis kept their oil flowing to America, which in turn pledged to protect the kingdom. That bargain has run its course. This could be a moment for reinvention. America and Saudi Arabia share common interests in everything from stabilising Syria to promoting regional economic integration. But the chaos of the Trump administration makes pursuing such long-term goals impossible.

Instead, the relationship is likely to remain transactional. Mr Trump hopes to leave Riyadh with a promise of $1trn in trade and investment, and to conclude an arms deal worth $100bn. Both are implausible: the former is equal to Saudi Arabia’s annual gdp, and the latter dwarfs its $72bn defence budget. The Saudis, for their part, still hope to conclude a formal defence pact with America. The kingdom has changed much since Mr Trump’s first term. But its relationship with America still looks mired in the past. ■

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