Princely welcome

Saudi royal's lavish visit is latest sign of Middle East policy shift

- Julian Borger Senior international correspondent

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

It was billed as a working visit but was more extravagant than any previous state visit. The president greeted the Saudi crown 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.

Once 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 - seen as the main reason Prince Mohammed had not visited the US for seven years - Trump lashed out at the reporter and her network, ABC.

He said Khashoggi had been “extremely controversial” and not universally liked (as if those were grounds for being butchered) and insisted Prince Mohammed had known nothing about the murder in Istanbul by Saudi state operatives, in direct contradiction of the conclusion drawn by US intelligence agencies.

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