On November 18, 2025, the gilded Oval Office of the White House became the stage for a high-stakes diplomatic encounter that could reshape the Middle East and reverberate far beyond. U.S. President Donald Trump welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—known widely as MBS—for a meeting that was as much about optics as it was about substance. But behind the handshakes and the gold-trimmed robes, the encounter signaled a recalibration of alliances, ambitions, and anxieties that have been building for years.
According to The Times of Israel, the mood in Washington that day was both celebratory and tense. MBS, the 40-year-old de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, announced an eye-popping pledge: nearly $1 trillion in investment into the U.S. economy. Trump, ever the showman, patted the crown prince’s shoulder and defended his ally against pointed questions from the press about the kingdom’s controversial record. Yet, as The Times of Israel noted, the visit was about much more than economics. For MBS, it was a bid to reassert Saudi Arabia’s influence in a region where the kingdom has recently found itself outmaneuvered by rivals, and to shore up his own standing at home and abroad.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. The war in Sudan, for example, has already claimed as many as 400,000 lives through violence, disease, and famine, and displaced an estimated 13 million people, as reported by Fox News. During the Oval Office meeting, MBS asked Trump to intervene in the Sudanese conflict—a request that underscored Saudi Arabia’s desire to play a leading role in regional stability, and the expectation that the U.S. would use its considerable influence to help broker peace. Trump, who has often been reluctant to wade into such quagmires, now faces a test of leadership that goes beyond humanitarian concerns. As Fox News put it, “Lives are at stake in Sudan, millions of them, but so is U.S. global leadership and dollar supremacy.”
Indeed, the shadow of China looms large over these diplomatic maneuvers. With Beijing actively courting Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to conduct trade in Chinese currency rather than U.S. dollars, the long-standing economic and strategic partnership between Washington and Riyadh is under unprecedented strain. The U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency is at risk, and the outcome of the Trump-MBS relationship could tip the balance. As Fox News observed, “China is strategically pursuing Saudi Arabia in its effort to be the leader of the world and to undercut the U.S. dollar.”
But the November summit was not just about high finance and geopolitics. It also highlighted the evolving personalities and priorities of both nations. The New York Times described the meeting as emblematic of the changing face of U.S.-Saudi relations, shaped by oil wealth, technological ambition, and the personal rapport between leaders. Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, an ambitious plan to diversify the kingdom’s economy, includes headline-grabbing projects like a 105-mile-long “skyscraper megacity” for 9 million residents and the world’s first fully robotic heart transplant, performed in 2024. The country has also invested in high-tech solutions to protect religious pilgrims from Medina’s blistering heat.
Yet, as The Times of Israel pointed out, not all is going smoothly for MBS. His flagship NEOM megacity project is struggling, and the kingdom’s aspirations to become an artificial intelligence powerhouse have been hampered by a lack of local talent and technology. That’s where the U.S. comes in. During the visit, the two countries signed a Strategic Artificial Intelligence Partnership, and Saudi AI company Humain inked deals with American tech giants like Cisco, Qualcomm, AMD, and Elon Musk’s xAI. These agreements are intended to help Saudi Arabia catch up with smaller but more agile neighbors like Qatar, which has recently been designated a major U.S. non-NATO ally and received robust defense guarantees.
Security, too, was high on the agenda. MBS has long sought a full Senate-approved defense treaty from Washington—something more permanent than the “major non-NATO ally” status the kingdom currently enjoys. While he didn’t get everything he wanted, he did secure a commitment from Trump to eventually sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, a move that would make it the first Muslim and Arab country to operate the world’s most advanced fighter. This has raised eyebrows in Israel, which has traditionally enjoyed air superiority in the region, but as John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told The Times of Israel, “It’s hard to conjure up any realistic scenario in which MBS would ever make the decision to wage war against Israel. But this is the Middle East. Regimes and intentions can change while capabilities remain.”
The visit also complicated the long-sought normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel under the Abraham Accords. Saudi leaders have historically insisted that normalization be tied to progress on Palestinian statehood, and the recent Gaza war has made this linkage even more fraught. Daniel Benaim of the Middle East Institute explained, “The fires of Gaza are too fresh, the ceasefire too fragile, Saudi leaders too concerned about their public’s opinion to move forward absent a credible path ahead for Palestinians, and Israeli leadership is unwilling to offer one.” With Trump now offering Riyadh more direct access and defense upgrades, the incentive for Saudi Arabia to make concessions to Israel has diminished.
Meanwhile, the kingdom’s reputation remains dogged by human rights concerns and allegations of transnational repression. As reported by Index on Censorship, Saudi comedian and activist Ghanem Al-Masarir is currently suing the Saudi government in the UK for psychological damage after being attacked in London in 2018 and discovering Pegasus spyware on his phone. The UK High Court ruled that Saudi Arabia did not have immunity under the State Immunity Act 1978, setting a precedent for holding states accountable for personal injury caused by surveillance and harassment on foreign soil. Similar cases involving Bahraini dissidents are now before the UK Supreme Court, with potentially far-reaching implications for international law and the safety of exiles in the West.
All of this unfolds against the backdrop of a region in flux. While Saudi Arabia has opened diplomatic channels with Iran to mitigate threats, it remains wary of Israel’s increasingly assertive military posture. As Moran Zaga, a Gulf scholar, observed, “It undermines, or to some extent weakens, Saudi Arabia’s ability to be the regional policeman — as if Israel is becoming responsible for the regional order instead of Saudi Arabia.”
For now, the Trump-MBS partnership has injected new energy—and uncertainty—into a relationship that has shaped global politics for nearly a century. Whether this latest round of deals and diplomacy will deliver lasting stability, or simply set the stage for the next round of rivalry and realignment, remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: the choices made in that gold-trimmed Oval Office will echo far beyond Washington and Riyadh, shaping the future of the Middle East and the world economy for years to come.