WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump is expected to meet Tuesday with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office, where the two leaders are likely to focus on combating Iran’s influence in the Middle East and strengthening ties between their two countries.
Mr. Trump has made relations with the ambitious 32-year-old heir to the Saudi throne a cornerstone of his Middle East strategy and visited the kingdom last spring on the first stop of his first overseas trip as president.
For Prince Mohammed, who arrived in Washington, D.C. overnight, the visit is an opportunity to affirm his role as a ruler the U.S. can count on to advance shared goals like curbing Iran’s influence in the Arab world—and to pitch Saudi Arabia as a business destination.
But the deepening ties between the two countries face a number of challenges, including Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, where thousands of civilians have been killed by the country’s airstrikes.
The Senate could vote as soon as Tuesday on a bipartisan resolution that seeks to cut off U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia’s military campaign in Yemen, which is aimed at fighting Iran-aligned Houthi rebels. The debate could cast a cloud over Prince Mohammed’s Washington visit.
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But both countries are touting this week’s meetings as a reflection of the growing ties between Washington and Riyadh.
“Relations with the United States are at an all-time high,” Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister told reporters in Washington on Monday.
During his visit, Prince Mohammed will meet with top Trump administration officials and key congressional leaders eager to hear more about his plans for the kingdom.
Prince Mohammed emerged as the kingdom’s top decision maker after his father, King Salman, assumed the throne three years ago. Since then, the Saudi royal has overseen an ambitious domestic reform plan aimed at diversifying Saudi Arabia’s economy away from oil and at liberalizing its ultraconservative society.
This is his first trip to the U.S. since he became heir to the throne in June, an episode that ushered in a period of chaos in the kingdom. In November, the crown prince directed a far-reaching corruption crackdown that targeted hundreds of people--among them princes, officials and prominent businessmen--rattling the royal family and spooking global investors. Many of the accused were released after reaching undisclosed cash settlements with the government.
Reassuring the business community and strengthening economic ties is a key goal of the Saudi royal’s nearly three-week U.S. tour.
The U.S. is hoping to secure up to $35 billion in new business deals with Saudi Arabia as Prince Mohammed travels to New York, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Seattle and Houston to discuss new ventures. Meetings with executives from Google, Apple and Lockheed Martin are among those on the agenda. U.S. and Saudi officials are expected to follow up on the status of possible business deals worth hundreds of billions--including $100 billion in arms sales alone--that were touted by both countries during Mr. Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia last year.
The U.S. also sees Prince Mohammed as a key ally to accomplish its top foreign policy goal bridging differences between Israel and the Palestinians. Jared Kushner, whom the president has charged with restarting the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, views Prince Mohammed as an ally who can influence the Palestinians and bring them to the table.
U.S. officials also are also trying to forge a deal to end a regional crisis pitting Qatar against Saudi Arabia and its allies in hopes of reuniting the Gulf nations in an important regional alliance. But Saudi officials have indicated this is not a priority for them, rejecting Washington’s mediation.
The U.S. praised Saudi Arabia on Monday for stepping up its humanitarian efforts in Yemen, but human rights groups say the measures don’t go far enough.
Mr. Jubeir dismissed critics who say his country is unnecessarily killing civilians and stoking a humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
“I don’t see it as a quagmire,” he said.
A big focus of Prince Mohammed’s trip will be to try to fix Saudi Arabia’s image problem that never fully recovered from the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which were carried out by mostly Saudi citizens. During his time in the U.S., Prince Mohammed can point to the steps his government has taken to curb the influence of Islamic hardliners and to loosen the kingdom’s strict social rules, such as the upcoming lifting of the ban on women driving.
“Forget about the old Saudi Arabia. Now he’s presenting the new country,” said Abdullah al Shammari, an academic and former senior Saudi diplomat. “We are brave enough to admit that we made mistakes, we tried our best to correct what we did before and we need you to understand that what is happening is important for Saudi Arabia, for the region and for the future.”
Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com and Margherita Stancati at margherita.stancati@wsj.com
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