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Saudi Prince’s White House Visit Reinforces Trump’s Commitment to Heir Apparent

President Trump met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia in the Oval Office on Tuesday.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump welcomed Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to the White House on Tuesday, reaffirming his embrace of an ambitious young monarch bent on reforming his country and realigning the Middle East.

The last time Mr. Trump played host to Prince Mohammed at the White House, a year ago, he was jockeying for position in the court of his father, King Salman. This time, with Mr. Trump’s unstinting support, Prince Mohammed arrived after having consolidated his position as Saudi Arabia’s heir apparent as well as a disruptive figure in the region.

“You are more than the crown prince now,” Mr. Trump said to him over lunch in the Cabinet room.

“The relationship is probably the strongest it’s ever been,” Mr. Trump said, turning to reporters. “We understand each other. Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy nation, and they’re going to give the United States some of that wealth hopefully, in the form of jobs, in the form of the purchase of the finest military equipment anywhere in the world.”

Earlier, in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump displayed a poster listing military aircraft, worth $12.5 billion, that the United States had agreed to sell to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis, Mr. Trump joked to a smiling prince, were paying “peanuts” for the planes.

During the meeting, a senior administration official said, the two leaders took up an array of thorny issues: Mr. Trump’s coming decision on whether to rip up the Iran nuclear deal; Saudi Arabia’s bitter dispute with its neighbor, Qatar; and the brutal civil war in Yemen, which has led lawmakers to propose a cutoff in American support for a Saudi-led bombing campaign that has killed thousands.

Mr. Trump, the official said, urged Prince Mohammed to settle the festering battle that pits Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates against Qatar. Mr. Trump had initially sided with the Saudis and Emiratis, echoing their claims that the Qataris finance extremism and terrorism around the region.

But as the feud has dragged on, the administration has become worried about the long-term effect on unity in the Persian Gulf, especially in the face of an emboldened Iran. Anthony C. Zinni, a retired Marine Corps general and the former head of the Central Command, recently toured the gulf to try to find ways to resolve the grievances.

Mr. Trump repeated his description of the Iran nuclear deal, negotiated by President Barack Obama, as the “worst deal ever,” the official said. But he did not preview what he plans to do about it, when he faces the next deadline in May.

“The Iran deal is coming up soon and you will see what will happen,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “Iran hasn’t been treating that part of the world, or the world appropriately.”

Prince Mohammed has cut his own wide swath in the Middle East over the last year, pushing through radical overhauls of Saudi society but also imprisoning more than 380 princes, businessmen and former government ministers in the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh, as part of an anticorruption campaign.

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Saudi Crown Prince: Liberalizer or Authoritarian?

Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, has ushered in an era of modernization and social reforms in the kingdom. But the prince has also cracked down on those who could threaten his power.

Since his father’s ascension to the throne in 2015, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has emerged as a driver of change and an uncompromising leader of Saudi Arabia. The prince’s image as a bold reformer has been paired with drastic acts of repression and ratcheted-up statements directed abroad. Here’s how. While known for its conservatism, the kingdom has a disproportionately young population. Two-thirds of Saudis are under 30. At 32, the prince has brought fast and drastic change in an effort to make his country appear more open. He has expanded the space for women in public life, allowing them to attend soccer matches, appointing them to public office and promising to let them drive starting in June. He has eliminated bans on movie theaters, concerts and other forms of public entertainment. And he has stripped the religious police — once in charge of monitoring women’s dress, among other things — of their arrest powers. M.B.S., as he’s sometimes referred to, also plans to overhaul the economy, long dependent on government jobs and the country’s vast oil reserves. He has proposed a shift toward tourism and renewable energies, expanding private employment and soliciting foreign investment. But the young prince has also drawn criticism for swiftly consolidating his power and sowing political chaos in the region. He has blockaded neighboring Qatar and continues to fan the flames of a years-old rivalry with Iran. In an interview, he likened Iran’s leader to Hitler. “Because he wants to expand. He wants to create his own project in the Middle East, very much like Hitler…” In Yemen, Saudi-led coalition forces are fighting in a civil war that has created what the U.N. says is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. As defense minister, M.B.S. led the country’s bombings and blockades of Yemen. “Why? Why Yemen? What they want from Yemen? Why they are killing us? Why they are killing our children and families?” Several prominent human rights activists and intellectuals have been jailed in the kingdom. And in November, the Saudi government locked up hundreds of powerful princes and businessmen in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton, in what it called an anti-corruption campaign. The government says it reached settlements worth more than $100 billion. Witnesses told The Times that during months of captivity, many were subjected to physical abuse and coercion. Dozens of influential clerics have also been detained. And this year, the military and internal security services went through a shake-up when the prince dismissed old leaders and replaced them with younger officials. So while some hope the kingdom will become a moderating force in the Middle East, others fear the prince is further destabilizing the region.

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Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, has ushered in an era of modernization and social reforms in the kingdom. But the prince has also cracked down on those who could threaten his power.

Mr. Trump, who made his first overseas trip as president to Riyadh in May, has lavished praise on Prince Mohammed for his calls for tolerance and moderation, while largely ignoring his purge of the Saudi establishment.

Administration officials said Mr. Trump was focused on regional issues, like Iran’s aggression and tensions in the Persian Gulf, rather than on the internal crackdown, which has led to charges — denied by the Saudi government — that it used physical abuse to get people to surrender their assets.

Mr. Trump did raise humanitarian concerns in Yemen, an official said, though the White House has tried to head off a drive in Congress to reduce military aid for the bombing campaign. Since 2015, the United States has provided the Saudis in Yemen with air-to-air refueling, intelligence assessments and other military advice. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has warned that cutting back that aid would harm the broader relationship.

The United States, a senior official said, has urged the Saudis, through diplomatic channels, to allow access to ports in Yemen for shipments of food and fuel. Refugee groups are calling on the president to take stronger action to ease the suffering of some three million people displaced by the fighting between the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels, who are backed by Iran.

Among those at the White House lunch were Vice President Mike Pence; the C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, recently nominated by Mr. Trump to succeed Rex W. Tillerson as secretary of state; and the national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster. After the lunch, Prince Mohammed met with congressional leaders from both parties on Capitol Hill.

On Tuesday evening, Prince Mohammed had dinner with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser; Jason D. Greenblatt, Mr. Trump’s special envoy for Middle East peace; and Michael Bell, the senior director for the Middle East at the National Security Council.

The three Americans briefed the prince on the status of their peace plan for the Israelis and Palestinians, which is nearly finished but has run into headwinds after Mr. Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Saudi Arabia condemned the move, which drove the Palestinians away from the bargaining table, and analysts said it was unlikely that Prince Mohammed would be able or willing to pressure the Palestinians to go back.

Mr. Kushner, 37, has cultivated a personal relationship with Prince Mohammed, 32, meeting him over dinner in Riyadh. But Mr. Kushner’s recent loss of his top-secret security clearance has raised questions about how deeply involved he will be in delicate national security issues.

For his part, Prince Mohammed will be soliciting $35 billion in American investment to accelerate his plan to overhaul Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure — part of his ambitious Vision 2030 plan, which seeks to modernize the kingdom and wean its reliance on oil.

Much of the itinerary on his two-week trip is outside Washington. He plans to travel to New York, Boston, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Houston, visiting companies that include Apple, Google and Lockheed Martin.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 7 of the New York edition with the headline: Saudi Prince’s Visit Deepens Trump’s Commitment to Heir Apparent. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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