Trump to host Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at White House for high-profile visit on Tuesday

Dubai: US President Donald Trump will host Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House on Tuesday (November 18) , with a full welcome ceremony in the morning followed by a dinner in the evening.

“We’re more than meeting,” Trump said late Friday while en route to Florida for the weekend. “We’re honouring Saudi Arabia, the Crown Prince.”

Tuesday’s visit will be the prince’s first return to the White House in more than seven years. Trump has forged a close rapport with him and hopes Saudi Arabia will soon normalise relations with Israel — a cornerstone goal of his Abraham Accords initiative.

“The Abraham Accords will be a part we’re going to be discussing,” Trump said Friday. “I hope that Saudi Arabia will be going into the Abraham Accords fairly shortly.”

The prince last visited Washington in 2018.

Plans for Tuesday include a military welcome, a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office and an evening dinner. Invitations have already been issued, largely to top corporate leaders, lawmakers and governors — several of whom Trump personally phoned, sources told CNN. First Lady Melania Trump is overseeing event coordination, as is customary for major visits.

Official working visit

Trump has not yet held a state visit in his second term. While state visits are typically used to show the strength of alliances, he also broke precedent in his first term by skipping a state dinner during his first year, later hosting the French president and the Australian prime minister in 2018 and 2019.

“President Trump looks forward to welcoming Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud to the White House, where the two leaders will participate in an official working visit,” a White House spokesperson said, declining to preview agenda details.

Separately, Saudi Arabia is organising an investment forum at the Kennedy Center the following day to connect US and Saudi business leaders.

Trump travelled to Saudi Arabia in May for his first state visit of his current term, where he was treated to an elaborate welcome including a fighter jet escort, an honour guard with golden swords, and Arabian horses flanking his motorcade. Ahead of the visit, Saudi Arabia pledged $600 billion in US investments. Several accompanying agreements are still pending full implementation.

US and Saudi officials are working to finalise defence and security arrangements ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, including major new purchases of American-made fighter jets and weapons, a US official said.

Key agenda

Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman — the crown prince’s younger brother — was in Washington last week for talks with senior US officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth.

“We explored ways to bolster our strategic cooperation. We also addressed regional and international developments,” he said afterwards.

A key agenda item for Trump will be advancing Saudi-Israeli normalisation — which he believes is close, especially after helping broker a Gaza ceasefire. However, Saudi Arabia has insisted that any deal must include a “credible” and “irreversible” pathway to Palestinian statehood, something the current Gaza plan does not yet guarantee. While a defence cooperation agreement is expected to be signed Tuesday, it falls short of a formal treaty, which would require approval by Congress.

Jared Kushner, one of the main architects of the Abraham Accords and a long-time close associate of the crown prince, was in Riyadh last week to hold preparatory discussions.