President Donald Trump’s decision to invite Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for a “working visit” to the White House is a costly mistake.
Pariahs don’t usually get to visit the West Wing. Such invitations — like the one recently extended to Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who until this month was on the U.S. government’s list of designated terrorists — signal legitimacy to the rest of the world.
The U.S. and Saudi Arabia have long had a unique relationship. The U.S. has been an indulgent patron of its oil-rich client for decades. American indulgence should have some limits, however. Call me old fashioned, but I’d say de facto public approval of the assassination of regime critics is well beyond that limit.
The last time MBS, as the crown prince is usually known, came to Washington, he met with The Washington Post editorial board and other journalists in our offices. I was there. It was March 2018, just a few days into my tenure as an opinion columnist. What struck me most about the encounter, and several other public interviews he has done since, was his willingness to lie openly and his lack of any perceptible humility. I wasn’t buying MBS’s charm offensive, but many present that day were impressed. I understood the appeal. He is young, speaks good English, seems worldly and comes off as affable, if not charismatic.
At the same time, however, this is a man responsible for the bloody deaths of tens of thousands of people, from civilians in Yemen to his many domestic Saudi critics. Execution rates have surged in recent years with a new high of 345 in 2024.
That encounter was six months before the disappearance and brutal murder of my Washington Post Opinion colleague Jamal Khashoggi. Jamal wasn’t there that day, but he wanted to be. More than that, though, he desired a more open future for his beloved homeland — and the entire Middle East. He hoped for a future Saudi Arabia with the freedoms MBS has long promised but keeps failing to deliver.
Ultimately, Jamal was killed for publicly advocating that his compatriots deserved better from their leaders.
A premeditated and gruesome assassination, ordered by a foreign head of state against a journalist living and working in Washington, is a direct assault on a core American value and not a crime the U.S. can or should simply ignore. Trump, however, made clear at the time that, despite the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion with high certainty that MBS either ordered or approved of Khashoggi’s killing, the crime would not get in the way of our relationship with Saudi Arabia. There was too much business on the line, he argued.
President Joe Biden let MBS off the hook even further by officially visiting Saudi Arabia in 2022, and famously greeting the crown prince with a fist bump.
Even if Trump and Biden were determined to maintain the cozy relationship the U.S. has with the kingdom, there was no reason to do so without exerting some pressure on the Saudi royal family.
It’s no secret that the U.S. has recently been ceding much of its moral high ground on press freedom and other human rights. Trump may not see those ideals as priorities, but his invitation to MBS is also strategically shortsighted.
MBS has repeatedly shown himself to be liability for his country, for the Middle East and for the U.S. At 40 years old, he has already dragged his country into a protracted war with Yemen and courted conflict with Iran. If this is a preview of his reign once he is officially king, buckle up. With the world likely stuck with him for decades to come, the U.S. will likely have endless messes to clean up.
Make no mistake, I am and always have been in favor of engaging with all nations — friends and foes alike. But not unconditionally. And certainly not by rewarding the most abhorrent abuses of power. The horrific Jamal Khashoggi episode provided an opportunity for the United States to clip MBS’s wings, and by doing so perhaps even alter the course of the Saudi succession drama. We missed our opportunity then. And by welcoming the crown prince to Washington this week, we will entrench him in power even further.
We will be dealing with this decision’s fallout for a long time.
The post MBS comes to Washington. Regrettably.
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