By Frederick Kempe Most headlines about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to Washington this week have focused on the obvious: cooperation on advanced chips, the Saudi purchase of F-35 jet fighters, one trillion dollars of promised Saudi investments in the United States, and President Donald Trump’s claim that his visitor knew nothing about the 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi (contrary to US intelligence assessments). The more significant story, however, is whether the visit signals an enduring shift in bilateral US-Saudi relations and, over time, the Middle East’s regional architecture. Could a more robust US-Saudi strategic partnership provide scaffolding for a dramatic advance in Middle Eastern economic and security integration? If so, that would be a towering accomplishment built on the foundation Trump set down in 2020 with the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab nations. If that possibility now exists, it’s in no small part because of the ambitions of two men: the seventy-nine-year-old US president, who has only three years left of his term, and the forty-year-old Saudi leader known as MBS, who came to Washington with a sense of urgency, though he may have decades of leadership yet before him. Every second counts Trump is a man in a hurry to leave a lasting foreign policy legacy. The Middle East presents perhaps his best opportunity, two weeks after he was able to add Kazakhstan to his Abraham Accords and a few days after the United Nations Security Council approved his peace plan for Gaza, including an International Stabilization Force to demilitarize and govern Gaza. MBS, too, is in a hurry. In the past decade, he has helped transform Saudi Arabia economically, socially, and politically, but he also realizes the need to address some setbacks and lock in momentum for what’s ahead. His ambition is to transform his religiously conservative, oil-dependent kingdom into a diversified, globally connected power that will thrive long after hydrocarbons fade. Through his Vision 2030, MBS has set out to create a high-tech, investment-rich economy with world-class infrastructure and futuristic cities that over time would position Saudi Arabia as a regional leader for business, tourism, and logistics. At home, he has centralized authority even as he has loosened religious constraints and nurtured a more socially open-if politically tightly controlled-society. When MBS speaks with American interlocutors, he often does so with a conviction that Saudi Arabia and the Middle East and North Africa (given their recent history of wars and violent extremism) face upside opportunities they must dare to seize before they are lost. He considers his country’s obligation as one that includes providing a model for economic and social development and helping its neighbors advance as well. It also includes taking on the remaining dangers standing in the region’s path (ranging from Gaza to Syria) and embracing worldwide partners-such as the United States and Europe-ready to help tackle the historic moment. As MBS told Arab News journalist Abdullah al-Mudaifer back in 2021, a consistent view he has expressed using different words before and since: There’s nothing called too fast. If you have an opportunity and it can be achieved as is achievable, and I do not achieve it with the pretext that I don’t want to hurry, then it means I’m procrastinating, and I don’t want to work. If we have an opportunity, we should grab it whether it is ten, one hundred, one thousand, or thousands of opportunities, and we shall develop our human resources and abilities of government to achieve these opportunities and once we do this open new horizons. Given the revolutionary nature of MBS’s aims, it isn’t surprising that he has run up against obstacles. Karen Elliott House, author of The Man Who Would Be King, writes in the Wall Street Journal: “Over the first 10 years, MBS dispensed ‘giga’ projects involving large-scale developments to diversify the kingdom off oil as if he were Santa Claus. Now the budget is stretched by too many expensive projects, low oil prices and failure to attract investment at the level the kingdom had hoped.” Grand ambitions require bold actions It’s hard to overestimate how important Trump and the United States are to the Saudi leader’s ability to deliver on his ambitions. The United States can help provide Saudi Arabia the security protections, the technology, the investments, and the geopolitical platform to construct the kingdom that MBS envisions. At the same time, Washington must understand that Saudi Arabia will look elsewhere, and in particular toward Beijing, if the United States is reluctant to embrace the kingdom’s ambitions. That, in turn, could produce a relationship based on cold transactions and guided by Beijing’s illiberal view of the global future. Beneath all the deals and agreements that will be announced this week, US and Saudi officials are quietly conjuring plans that could be transformative. This includes integrated air and missile defense across the region, as well as artificial intelligence and semiconductor ecosystems that anchor the Middle East with the United States and not with China. It also includes, if Trump has his way, Saudi-Israeli normalization. MBS has said this final breakthrough can only come once there is a secure pathway to a Palestinian state, but what was once considered impossible now appears within reach. Two factors have prepared the ground for this moment. The first is the economic modernization and political moderation of states such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in recent decades. The second is Israel’s game-changing military successes against Iran and its proxies in the past year, which took place alongside US strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites in June. In June, I wrote in this space that “the Trump administration has a historic opportunity, if it thinks more like an architect than a firefighter and if it acts more with political resolve than with restraint.” The Abraham Accords in Trump’s first term, I continued, “showed what could happen when Iran and its proxies were weakened. Imagine what a second Trump administration could achieve if Iran’s revolutionary regime is more existentially endangered.” What the Saudis have learned since then is that Trump is focused on a wider Middle East peace, including Israel and based on the Abraham Accords, that goes far beyond his Gaza plan. Saudi officials have talked to me about their ambition of being at the center of a Middle East economic and security integration of the kind Europe was only able to pull off after millions perished during World War II. Such integration, the Saudi officials argue, would help usher in an enduring period of peace and prosperity. What that vision will require, beyond any successes of this week, includes: Continuing US and Israeli success in containing Iran and its proxies. Implementing Trump’s Gaza peace plan, including creating a pathway toward Palestinian self-determination. Working toward stabilizing other long-fragile Middle East countries, such as Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. Deepening relations and increasing trust among moderate Arab states, while building security and technology relations among them, Europe, and, most importantly, the United States. Cruel history has taught long-time Middle East watchers to be skeptical about the possibility of such a positive regional turn for the better. It would be a mistake, however, not to seize upon the momentum of this moment, and a set of determined leaders, to transform the Middle East for good. Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X @FredKempe. This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here. Further reading Wed, Nov 19, 2025 Digging into the details of the US-Saudi deals Fast Thinking By Atlantic Council Our experts dive into the US-Saudi announcements that followed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s White House visit on Tuesday. Mon, Nov 17, 2025 As elections loom, can Netanyahu balance Trump, Mohammed bin Salman, and his political future? New Atlanticist By Daniel B. Shapiro The Israeli prime minister’s preferred path to survive a treacherous election will be to show Israeli voters that he is advancing their country’s regional integration and staying within the US president’s embrace. Tue, Nov 18, 2025 Peace, pacts, and recognition: Saudi Arabia at the forefront of a new Middle East MENASource By R. Clarke Cooper Trump and other US officials remain eager to add Saudi Arabia to the Abraham Accords rota and to strike a defense pact. Image: President Donald Trump leads Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on a tour of the White House in Washington, on Nov. 18, 2025.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/inflection-points/trump-and-mbs-have-big-ambitions-for-the-middle-east-bold-action-must-follow/
President Donald Trump leads Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on a tour of the White House in Washington, on Nov. 18, 2025. 