AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
President Trump hosts Saudi Arabia's crown prince this week. There will be a formal White House dinner for Mohammed bin Salman. U.S. intelligence linked MBS - as he's also known - to the killing of a Saudi Washington Post columnist in 2018. That's just one example human rights critics of the kingdom point to. When he last met Trump in May, the crown prince promised $600 billion worth of Saudi investments. Yasmine Farouk is the project director for the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula at International Crisis Group. Welcome to the program.
YASMINE FAROUK: Thank you for inviting me.
RASCOE: Well, how would you describe the current state of U.S.-Saudi relations?
FAROUK: Well, I think both sides are banking a lot on the personal rapport between the two leaders. The crown prince of Saudi Arabia and President Trump are two people who put business and economic and trade relations first, and the economic growth, of course, in the case of the United States as top priority in the bilateral relationship. And in that sense, they understand each other. They speak the same language. And so they get along, and it allows them to drive the conversation later into politics.
They also speak the same language when it comes to conflicts and regional security in the Middle East in the sense that they want to stop wars. They want the region to move from insecurity to prosperity, even if they differ on the path to take in order to reach that regional stability and prosperity.
RASCOE: What are the main points of tension between the two countries? What are the challenges?
FAROUK: Saudi Arabia was very worried by the U.S. support to Israel over the past two years. Although the three countries - Israel, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. - agreed on the end goals of, you know, defeating the proxies of Iran in the region, Saudi Arabia didn't necessarily think that such a high-intensity conflict in Gaza should have been supported by the U.S. Saudi Arabia thinks that, in addition to the use of force, there must be negotiations. There must be diplomacy.
But they differ, for example, on who's going to govern Gaza in the transition period. They differ on the time frame of Israeli occupation of Gaza. You have other differences, for example, on dealing with Iran, where Saudi Arabia is worried that the United States is not going to keep Israel in check and that there will be a new round of war in the region, and Saudi Arabia could become a target. I would say that the Trump administration has shown that it is willing and capable to use force. Saudi Arabia would like it to use diplomacy with the same energy and with the same heavy handed, if I might say.
RASCOE: Talk to me about the diplomacy because obviously, the U.S. helped Israel and Saudi Arabia come very close to normalizing relations. Those plans were thwarted by the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023. Could normalizing be back on the table now with Trump back in office?
FAROUK: Saudi Arabia kept normalization on the table but kept it as long as it will be linked to a pathway to Palestinian state. And that's because Saudi Arabia believes that there needs to be a solution once and for all. It was Israel first that said that it refuses any kind of concession that would lead to a Palestinian state, and that if this is the Saudi condition, then normalization will not happen. And to go back to your questions, the details of that solution are where U.S. and Saudi Arabia may differ, and I'm sure that this will be discussed during the crown prince's visit.
RASCOE: So one point of contention in the relationship between the two countries historically has been over human rights, and that was definitely one of the points of tension with President Biden. How do human rights factor in with President Trump, or do they factor in?
FAROUK: I think President Trump made it very clear when he came to Riyadh that he respects the separation between the domestic and foreign policy realms when it comes to other countries. And him and his envoys have been repeating this, saying we will not tell countries how to govern their people. So I don't think - or I'm actually pretty sure that human rights and domestic politics inside Saudi Arabia will not be on the agenda.
RASCOE: That was Yasmine Farouk, project director for the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula at International Crisis Group. Thank you so much for joining us.
FAROUK: Thank you for having me.
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