Do F-35s signal a US pivot to Riyadh?

Pageantry and trillion-dollar promises show how Washington's loyalties may be tilting away from Israel and towards the Gulf

- Julian Borger

The White House welcome bestowed on the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was the most lavish of the Trump presidency, and a gaudily clear statement of its foreign policy priorities.

It was billed as a mere working visit, but it was more extravagant than any previous state visit. The president greeted the prince on the south lawn, the White House’s biggest stage. There were uniformed men on horses bearing flags and a flypast of fighter jets.

Inside the newly gilded Oval Office, Trump came across as a man besotted. He grabbed at the prince’s hand and declared more than once what an honour it was to lay claim to the royal friendship. When a journalist pierced this golden bubble by raising the 2018 murder and dismemberment of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi - the main reason Prince Mohammed had not visited for seven years - Trump lashed out, lambasting the reporter and her network, ABC.

He declared that Khashoggi was “extremely controversial” and not universally liked and insisted the prince had known nothing about the murder in Istanbul by Saudi state operatives, in direct contradiction of the conclusions drawn by US intelligence.

Trump’s disregard for human rights and US intelligence agencies and his fandom for autocrats are nothing new. US foreign policy had already shifted decisively in that direction in January as he took office for the second time. If there was a real shift on show during Prince Mohammed’s visit, it was in the skies over Washington.

The F-35 stealth fighter jets on show in the flypast for the visiting royal are up for sale to Saudi Arabia, Trump confirmed. The sale would not be conditional and the specifications of Saudi F-35s would be the same as Israel’s.