Trump's new best friend. Chesnot/Getty Images.
The picture says it all: Marco Rubio and Sergey Lavrov, America and Russia, sat about a hardwood table beneath the dripping chandeliers of Saudi Arabia’s Diriyah Palace, ready to remake Eurasia for the rest of the century. Between them sits Prince Farhan bin Abdallah, the Saudi foreign minister, and cousin to Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS). Delegates from Europe and Ukraine are nowhere to be seen.
The message from Donald Trump’s peace talks on Tuesday is clear: Saudi Arabia is now the most influential Arab country. Far outranking Egypt, the kingdom is well placed to benefit from America’s freewheeling new foreign policy, especially given that MBS enjoys remarkably close relationships with figures at the very heart of Trumpworld. From making peace with Israel to securing nuclear weapons, the second Trump term could transform Saudi foreign policy.
From a Saudi perspective, arguably the most significant US presence at the talks in Riyadh was not Rubio, or even National Security Advisor Mike Walz, but rather Steve Witkoff. Trump’s Middle East envoy, and sometime golf buddy, was the President’s pick to meet Putin in Moscow last week. According to Trump, the encounter lasted “for a very extended period” — and that isn’t the only sign of his influence.
Witkoff, like Trump, is a billionaire real estate magnate who knows how to get things done. Even before his boss was formally inaugurated, and as the Biden administration faced blockages with the Gaza hostage deal, Witkoff defied convention (being Jewish himself) by conspicuously insisting that Benjamin Netanyahu break the Sabbath to meet him. Though not at that point officially in post, Witkoff then flew to Doha, where he spent time with Biden’s own Middle East envoy, Brett McGurk, who for his part praised the meeting, telling the Washington Post of a “very close partnership” that even extended to friendship.
As Trump’s envoy to a notoriously unstable region, Witkoff will doubtless face formidable obstacles. But in a diplomatic landscape where personal fixers are increasingly replacing professionals from the State Department, he’s unlikely to be outflanked by officials who work by the book. And in MBS, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, he also finds a partner deeply familiar with the world of Washington-Riyadh diplomacy.
Trump himself has always set great store on his relationship with the Saudis. During his first presidency, in May 2017, Riyadh was the first foreign capital he visited. In part, this preoccupation can be understood strategically, with the country a huge market for American weaponry, and a key to shoring up Israel and US Gulf allies against pressure from Iran.
Yet he had friends there too. In his May 2017 visit, Trump was accompanied by his son-in-law Jared Kushner. The latter had formed a strong personal bond with MBS, at that point the kingdom’s deputy crown prince. Over the course of private conversations, and hinting too at Kushner’s friendship with the Netanyahus, the pair likely decided they could short-circuit the usual diplomatic process and forge a peace between Israelis and Palestinians — all while outflanking other regional actors. Never mind that Kushner had no knowledge of the region, beyond his family’s support for Israeli non-profits supporting Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank: his friendship with MBS made him influential.
Some American officials believed that the Saudis and their Emirati allies were treating Kushner as a “useful idiot” in their designs against the Islamic Republic. But Kushner and his friends in the White House could also see the advantage in having an ally in the Saudi court at a time of growing, if unacknowledged, alignment between Israel and the Gulf monarchies. As Martin Indyk, a former US diplomat, told the New York Times: “The relationship between Jared Kushner and Mohammed bin Salman constitutes the foundation of the Trump policy not just toward Saudi Arabia but toward the region.”
After the shocking murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist killed at his country’s consulate in Istanbul, Kushner’s relationship with MBS came under growing public scrutiny. Revelations about their “bromance” took an especially sinister turn when it appeared that Kushner might be less interested in brokering Middle East peace than in having the Saudis rescue his own family’s finances in exchange for helping them acquire nuclear weapons.
Thanks to a disastrous investment in a New York property, complete with the apocalyptic address of 666 Fifth Avenue, the business Kushner shared with his father Charles was in dire straits. Kushner Jr looked to the Qatari sovereign wealth fund, but they turned him down. He was rescued instead by Brookfield Asset Management, a company that owns Westinghouse Electric, a nuclear services business hoping to sell nuclear reactors to Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has always claimed it wanted the technology for civilian purposes, even as it insisted on producing its own nuclear fuel, rather than buying it more cheaply abroad.
Shortly after being rebuffed by the Qataris, and in his role as Trump’s senior foreign policy advisor, Kushner provided critical US support for a diplomatic assault on Qatar. After a long period of tension, with Qatar seen as much more friendly to the Muslim Brotherhood and to Iran, with which it shares the world’s largest field of natural gas, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ultimately blockaded the country. According to media reports at the time, Kushner was instrumental in undermining efforts by the then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — a seasoned oil man familiar with the region — to end the standoff. Soon enough, Tillerson himself was out, peremptorily dismissed by Trump in March 2018.
The Khashoggi scandal initially embarrassed the first Trump administration, not least because the victim was well known in Washington and had friends on Capitol Hill. The manner of Khashoggi’s death — he was first strangled, then brutally dismembered — hardly helped. Yet after talking on the phone to both Saudi’s king and its crown prince, Trump bought into the story that the killing had been the work of rogue actors. Here, Kushner’s role appears to have been pivotal. Though officials had tried to restrict his communications with MBS, in accordance with protocols that members of the National Security Council should participate in all calls with foreign leaders, the two men continued to talk and text on WhatsApp. With US intelligence agencies concluding that the killing may have been ordered by MBS himself, Kushner became the prince’s most important defender inside the White House, perhaps unsurprising when the duo are on first-name terms.
MBS can now rest assured he has a powerful friend in the White House. Yet challenges remain, particularly since the horrors of the Hamas massacre and the annihilation of Gaza that followed. From a personal perspective, the crown prince has said he has no interest in the “Palestinian issue” — but must take account of the fact that his young population does. Before the Hamas attack, his aims were clear enough. In return for “normalising” relations with Israel in line with the Abraham Accords, signed by the UAE and Bahrain, the Saudis would secure a comprehensive security deal with the United States. Notably, that included backing for its stop-start nuclear ambitions. The October 7 atrocity put paid to that project. As even Joe Biden acknowledged, one of the reasons Hamas attacked Israel was because the Saudis were about to “sit down with” their old rivals in Tel Aviv.
On this particular issue, Trump’s foreign policy could yet cause the Saudis problems. Think about it like this: can MBS really go along with Trump’s mad scheme to take over Gaza, and ethnically cleanse its Palestinian population, while also maintaining that there must be an irreversible “pathway” to Palestinian statehood — a scheme Netanyahu has devoted his whole career to wrecking. It would be ironic indeed if Kushner’s friendship with one Middle Eastern ruler scuppered his plans with another.
There may of course be some wiggle room here. On Fox News, Steve Witkoff suggested that Trump’s resettlement plan — rejected by Jordan and Egypt — was really his way of starting a new conversation: “Now you have the Egyptians saying we have a plan, the Jordanians are saying we have a plan, and people are really engaging in really important cogent discussions…We are actually engaged in a productive conversation around what is best for Gaza and how do we make peoples’ lives better.” At a summit in Cairo later this month, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, and Jordan are expected to put forward the Arab plan for Gaza. Having dangled before Trump a $600 billion investment in the US and the promise of a reduction in oil prices, MBS won’t be without leverage.
***
Malise Ruthven’s latest book, Unholy Kingdom: Religion, Corruption and Violence in Saudi Arabia (Verso), is out on 25 February.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe“Riyadh has always claimed it wanted the technology for civilian purposes“. Yeah, because what other means does Saudi Arabia have for generating enough electricity for its population?
Glancing at the caption photograph I can well understand why the Ancient Greeks believed in physiognomy!
Would anyone seriously buy a second hand car from that chap?
Yes, unlike Trump and Starmer and Bibi.
Solid trustful faces there.
White, and..er.. orange, are the colours of trust.
MBS is a nasty piece of work, make no mistake.
There is no friendship in politics, especially when dealing with Arab nations. To truly understand Arab political culture, one must recognize that personal familiarity—such as addressing each other by first names or even kissing each other on the cheeks—does not equate to friendship. Kushner and MBS may appear close financially, but from the Arab perspective, they are not friends. I wouldn’t even use the word “friendship” in this context. Engaging with those who practice Islam requires a balance of sharp logic and deep emotional intelligence, as the religion itself is highly logical yet deeply rooted in emotional and principled foundations. This contrasts with individuals from other religious backgrounds who may perceive themselves as unaffected by their faith, acting or thinking as though religion does not influence them. This dissociation creates gaps in understanding and engagement, particularly when dealing with Arabs, who tend to have a more integrated relationship with their religion.
Secondly, Witkoff represents a modern iteration of Kissinger—someone who will ultimately betray everyone in the room. The Arabs understand this well. Just as Kissinger backstabbed others during Nixon’s era, they know Witkoff will do the same simply because he is an outsider to the system. They are fully aware that Witkoff and Kushner have unlimited offline access to Trump, and that’s the real angle the Arabs are operating from—not the superficial narratives presented to the public. Everything else is a distraction, entertainment for the masses. The repeated references to “Sabbath” in discussions are a textbook example of propaganda, designed to build trust in Witkoff.
Thirdly, when Saudi Arabia claims that the Palestinian issue is no longer a priority, it is simply telling the West what it wants to hear. The reality, from their perspective, is either far more complex—or much simpler. The Arab world remains materially and militarily dependent on American support for now, so they craft narratives that serve their interests while quietly pursuing their actual goals. Do you notice no reasons are given why Palestine is not an issue? If Arabs truly did not care about Palestine, the issue would have disappeared from conversation long ago.
This is not about taking a hostile stance toward Arab politics, but about adopting a detached, analytical approach. Arabs are politically shrewder than Americans—not due to inherent superiority, but because their civilization is older and has spent centuries mastering power dynamics in their own region. Americans may believe they are in control, but in many cases, they are the ones being strategically maneuvered. You see how EU is breaking down now that US is abandoning them, Arabs will never put all their eggs in one place like that! That is the difference!
Ultimately, Witkoff represents a new kind of political force—one that could become just as problematic as Kissinger. When he and the national security establishment inevitably clash, we will witness the rift unfold in real-time, in a world vastly different from the 1970s.
The real question is: what is Witkoff’s ultimate goal? Kissinger engineered China’s rise while attempting isolating Russia—what will Witkoff’s legacy be? In my opinion, his blind spot will be unintentionally isolating Israel. The current devaluing of Egypt and Jordan (the Camp David Accord) is extremely fishy because, without these two countries, Israel becomes landlocked and isolated by air. Unless, of course, the goal is war—an outcome that is ultimately unpredictable. It is almost as if Witkoff believes they can get a better deal than CDA but it may also backfire spectacularly!
Saudis want to be the next Brussels but much more complex because of the vast cultural differences!