‘A diplomat who says ‘yes’ means ‘maybe,’ a diplomat who says ‘maybe’ means ‘no,’ and a diplomat who says ‘no’ is no diplomat,” Talleyrand supposedly said.
We are aware of no aphorism from the 18th-century statesman that takes account of a head of state who, when he means “yes,” says, “Hell, yes — you’re the best ever.”
President Trump had a characteristically over-the-top meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). The president provided cover for MBS for the truly medieval Saudi murder of Jamal Khashoggi — scolding a reporter for asking about it — and raved about the Saudi royal, while offering some notable benefits to the kingdom.
Trump is right to want to move beyond the Biden administration’s foolish attempt to isolate the Saudis — something even President Biden realized was unsustainable (turns out Saudi oil is important to the world market). The Saudis are strategically important, and we should have a relationship with them, but there’s no need to gush.
There would have been many ways to sidestep the Khashoggi question, and Trump wouldn’t have put himself in the position of answering while sitting next to MBS if he hadn’t had him for an elaborate White House visit in the first place. The Saudis run a modernizing but still appalling dictatorship, and we don’t need to be their press agents.
More concretely, Trump said Saudi Arabia will become a “major non-NATO ally” and offered it a security guarantee. In other words, it’s on the Qatar plan. Like the guarantee we extended to Qatar, this one will apparently be effected via executive order, an end run around the Senate’s prerogative to approve foreign treaties that will mean its legitimacy and staying power will be in doubt (which is why the Saudis surely hoped for more).
Trump also wants to sell F-35s to the Saudis. The kingdom loves these sorts of prestige weapons purchases, even though they can bomb the Houthis with F-15s just fine. A similar proposed F-35 sale to the United Arab Emirates during Trump’s first term eventually fell through, and a potential Saudi deal is vulnerable on similar grounds. The U.S. determined that the UAE was too close to China to trust with the advanced technology, and the Saudis, too, have cozied up to Beijing. Under U.S. law, we are also committed to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region, and this sale could call that into question.
On the other side of the ledger, the Saudis didn’t give us much, except an assurance that they will invest even more in the United States, increasing the total from a promised $600 billion to $1 trillion. These kinds of headline-generating numbers that so please President Trump often don’t come to fruition, and it’s not at all clear that the Saudis have the financial wherewithal to follow through. As for a normalization of relations with Israel, that’s apparently not in the offing absent even greater commitments from the United States. And there was no public indication of any distancing of Riyadh from Beijing.
Still, under Trump, the U.S.-Saudi relationship is in a better place, even if it would behoove him to curb his enthusiasm.