{"id":579040,"date":"2025-11-18T21:16:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T21:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/579040\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T21:16:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T21:16:14","slug":"trump-and-mr-bone-saw-stage-love-in-as-saudis-1tn-wipes-the-bloody-slate-clean-mohammed-bin-salman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/579040\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump and Mr Bone Saw stage love-in as Saudi\u2019s $1tn wipes the bloody slate clean | Mohammed bin Salman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Strongmen can have comeback stories too.<\/p>\n

Seven years ago, Mohammed bin Salman<\/a>, the Saudi crown prince, became an international pariah after intelligence officers said to be acting on his orders abducted and murdered the Washington Post columnist and opposition critic Jamal Khashoggi. In a gruesome coda, it later emerged, the Saudi agents dismembered his body with a bone saw in order to dispose of the evidence.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Prince Mohammed was met with the most extravagant reception of the second Trump administration, as the two men said they would cement $1tn in deals and made a public show of bonhomie that marked perhaps the most important bilateral relationship of this administration.<\/p>\n

It was far more than a simple normalisation of relations as Trump abandoned concerns over Khashoggi\u2019s murder to pursue his latest triumph as the self-declared dealmaker-in-chief.<\/p>\n

In an extraordinary moment in front of the press, Trump criticised the murdered columnist, whom he said \u201cmany people didn\u2019t like\u201d and denied US intelligence agencies\u2019 conclusion that his murder was orchestrated by the crown prince<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re mentioning someone that was extremely controversial,\u201d Trump said of Khashoggi. \u201cWhether you like him or didn\u2019t like him, things happen, but [Prince Mohammed] knew nothing about it. Why did you have to embarrass our guest by asking about that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch the two strongmen sitting on the gilded backdrop of the Oval Office, and the message was clear: that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia<\/a> will usher in a new golden era for the United States. \u201cWe\u2019re doing numbers that nobody has ever done,\u201d said Trump, as he said that Saudi Arabia would invest up to $1tn in the United States, which he said would lead to \u201cjobs, lots of jobs\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou keep increasing Mr President,\u201d said the crown prince, who smiled eagerly through much of the meeting, as he let Trump dominate the talking. \u201cThe opportunities keep increasing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DonaldDonald Trump says Mohammed bin Salman ‘knew nothing’ about Jamal Khashoggi murder \u2013 video<\/p>\n

It was a state visit in all but name as a marine band played and black horses carrying US and Saudi green flags trotted across the South Lawn. As Trump greeted Prince Mohammed with a handshake, the US president smiled and pointed to the sky over the Washington Monument \u2013 soon a squadron of F-15 and F-35 fighter jets soared overhead as both men beamed.<\/p>\n

Those jets will be some of the items on the Saudi leader\u2019s shopping list as he eyes a series of deals that will illustrate the new security and economic ties between Washington and Riyadh. Those deals are being pursued over the objections of traditional allies like Israel \u2013 which has opposed the first transfer of F-35 jets to a Middle East ally that is not Israel \u2013 as well as critics within the administration worried that China may be able to intercept sensitive US military technology through their relationship with Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

The moment has marked the rise of the Gulf as perhaps the major international power broker for the new Trump administration, in relationships that have been bolstered by business dealings between some of Trump\u2019s closest friends and own family members in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and in Qatar.<\/p>\n

All three have combined to invest nearly $5bn in a fund managed by Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner, while other close allies like Steve Witkoff have conducted diplomacy and personal business in the region simultaneously.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have nothing to do with the family business,\u201d Trump said when asked about the deal on Tuesday. \u201cWhat my family does is fine. They do business all over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet for all those involved, the business is personal. Shortly before the two men appeared on national television for a rambling press conference, Khashoggi\u2019s widow appeared on MS Now to issue a lone call for the investigation into her husband\u2019s murder to continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very painful, very heavy,\u201d she said of Prince Mohammed\u2019s arrival in the United States. Demanding the return of her husband\u2019s body, she said there was \u201cunfinished business\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Strongmen can have comeback stories too. Seven years ago, Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, became an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-579040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115572781499800391","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}