Donald Trump received a glittering welcome from leaders in Saudi Arabia on the first day of his first international tour, as the two countries agreed a series of military deals worth nearly $110bn (£85bn).
The US president’s decision to make the Saudi capital his first foreign call was seized on by senior Saudi officials as a symbol that Washington aimed to be once again a bedrock for the kingdom and its allies.
Lucrative defence and business deals were signed before Trump touched down in Riyadh, and numerous bilateral agreements were signed soon after he embarked on a 36-hour series of talks and banquets, which he plans to anchor with a speech on Islam to be delivered on Sunday night.
A White House official said Trump and Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, would attend the signing of a memorandum of intent on a package of defence equipment and services to bolster the security of the kingdom and the Gulf region in the face of Iranian threats.
“This package demonstrates, in the clearest terms possible, the United States’ commitment to our partnership with Saudi Arabia and our Gulf partners, while also expanding opportunities for American companies in the region, and supporting tens of thousands of new jobs in the US defence industrial base,” a statement said.
Trump’s forthcoming speech was widely – and nervously – anticipated in Saudi Arabia, where clerics and officials had railed against Trump’s anti-Muslim campaign rhetoric, which had alienated many in the Islamic world and led many in the kingdom to view him as divisive and even Islamophobic.
Ever since, Saudi leaders have gradually recalibrated their views and now see him as more expedient than ideological.
Trump looked solemn and respectful as he sat alongside the Saudi monarch, King Salman. His wife Melania and daughter Ivanka were conspicuously uncovered alongside a row of Saudi dignitaries, including the crown prince, Mohammed bin Nayef, and deputy crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
In addition to proposing a series of deals, Saudi officials have also accepted a central theme of Trump’s visit of tackling radicalism. Saudi Arabia had been accused by the Obama administration of proselytising an extreme Wahhabi view of Islam elsewhere in the Muslim world. The kingdom has denied playing such a role and insisted it shares a mutual enemy in the global jihadi movement, which threatens its power base as much as the US and Europe.
Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, had also suggested that Riyadh might at times have been an unreliable ally in the fight against extremism, which intensified in the last two years of his administration, when Islamic State overran parts of Syria and Iraq.
Saudi state media labelled the visit as” transformative”, claiming it would succeed in turning bilateral ties from a “relationship of tension to a strategic partnership”. However, some senior officials pondered whether a leader whose temperament is called regularly into question and whose travails at home are not going away would be able to push his agenda through.
“He is a businessman and he wants to get things done, which is good for us,” said a ministerial aide. “But a lot of this is driven by his personal conviction. Who’s to say that if he goes the next leader won’t do what he is doing to Obama and unwind everything?”
Senior US officials say they have been heartened by the willingness of their Saudi counterparts to buy into an anti-radicalisation agenda, which appears to be partly conditional on Washington’s readiness to help with widespread economic and cultural reforms.
Mohammed bin Salman, who also serves as defence minister, has been tasked with overhauling a state-driven economy as well as cultural norms that Saudi Arabia’s large young population find constraining. A lack of entertainment and career opportunities is increasingly seen by security officials as a subversive threat equal to that of Isis, which has lured up to 3,000 young Saudis to the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, and led thousands more to quietly support them.
In a Riyadh shopping mall, young Saudis said they welcomed the Trump visit and the reform programme.
Maha, who was shopping with her daughter, Reem said: “I think he has the wrong idea of Islam and that this visit could help him correct some misconceptions. He hasn’t always spoken correctly and this is a chance for him to learn.”
Both women, dressed in niqabs, said they thought Trump would experience for himself a society that posed no threat to him, or his supporters. Both embraced the reform programme, which has been criticised by conservative elements of Saudi society who remain vehemently opposed to any form of liberalism and insist that a rigid, literal reading of the Islamic texts should remain a blueprint for life.
“Of course we welcome the reforms,” said Maha, who has two sons studying in England and two other daughters working in Riyadh. “It will help with opportunities, particularly in education.”
A group of four other Saudi residents and university students, Buthaina from Yemen, Nour from Sudan, and Shahinda and Amal from Egypt, said they too thought the Trump visit would clear up mutual distrust.
However, the reform programme interested all four of them more. None are entitled to Saudi citizenship despite being born in Riyadh.
“These reforms are good,” said Buthaina. “Although we think that Saudi citizens will get the benefits of them. There is a need for more freedoms, and we welcome the opportunities that they’ll create.”
