Autocrats like Prince Mohammed are eager to benefit from Trump’s brazen effort to use the presidency to enrich himself and his family
Donald Trump and Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, appeared together at a US-Saudi investment summit at the Kennedy Center.
It’s all part of a rehabilitation tour for Prince Mohammed, years after US intelligence agencies concluded that he had ordered the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and Saudi dissident. In October 2018, Khashoggi was ambushed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a 15-member hit team, who dismembered his body with a bone saw. For a time, the killing turned Prince Mohammed into an international pariah. But Trump never wavered in his support of the Saudi leader, and during his first term protected the prince from US sanctions and pressure from Congress.
Prince Mohammed later repaid the favor to Trump: after a mob of the president’s supporters stormed the US Capitol in January 2021, several US banks and other businesses cut ties with the Trump Organization, which was already reeling from financial losses that hammered the tourism industry at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. But Saudi Arabia stood by Trump and his family business, expanding various real estate deals and golf partnerships that helped Trump at one of his lowest points. During his years out of power, the kingdom and its crown prince became one of the most important sources of new deals for the Trump brand, which had become toxic for many US businesses and consumers after the Capitol riot.
