Trump may have embraced Mohammad bin Salman, but Washington’s “reset” with Riyadh is more illusion than alliance.
Salman Rafi Sheikh
The visit and the many deals
Amid flashy lights and probing questions from the media, President Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman signed a series of landmark agreements that marked a major upgrade in US-Saudi relations. MBS’s November 2025 visit to Washington was consequential for several reasons: Trump announced the sale of F-35 stealth jets to the Kingdom — a historic first for any Arab nation — and formally elevated Saudi Arabia to a major non-NATO ally. Beyond these headline-grabbing moves, the two sides also signed agreements on civil nuclear energy cooperation, artificial intelligence collaboration, and a Critical Minerals Framework designed to align strategic supply chains. The Kingdom further pledged to ramp up its investment in the US to nearly $1 trillion, spanning energy, technology, defense, and infrastructure sectors. These measures signal a strategic reset: the US gains a closer partner in the Middle East, while Saudi Arabia secures advanced military capabilities, diversified technological partnerships, and a deepened economic footprint.
In effect, the Kingdom’s ambitions for regional and global leverage bump up against the realpolitik constraints of US strategic interests, highlighting that symbolic deals and public declarations are not sufficient to guarantee durable cooperation
Clearly, Riyadh is aiming to leverage its revamped ties with the US to boost both its regional influence and its global standing. But the question remains: can it really do so? A closer look suggests the limits of this strategy. For one, Saudi Arabia is not the first Gulf state to attain the status of a major non-NATO ally; Qatar has held this designation since 2022. In that sense, Riyadh is not receiving exceptional treatment. Rather, it is being brought into a framework that the US already extends to select strategic partners in the region. Moreover, despite repeated Saudi efforts to secure a formal NATO-like security guarantee, the Kingdom remains far from achieving that level of institutionalised protection.
Qatar, by contrast, benefited from a more explicit assurance during the Trump administration: via an executive order, the US committed to treating any attack on Qatari soil as an attack on itself, effectively offering a de facto security guarantee. Riyadh’s agreements, in contrast, are largely transactional — encompassing arms sales, investment pledges, and defense cooperation — but do not equate to binding obligations that would automatically draw the US into a conflict on Saudi behalf. This distinction matters not just for perception, but for realpolitik: while Riyadh can signal closeness to Washington, it cannot rely on the same structural protections that smaller, diplomatically nimble states such as Qatar have secured. In short, the Kingdom’s upgraded ties enhance its visibility and leverage, but they do not automatically translate into a concrete shield against regional threats, leaving Riyadh to continue balancing ambition with the realities of strategic dependence.
External Irritations
Beyond the fact that Saudi Arabia did not secure the full range of assurances it originally sought, even the agreements reached may face significant hurdles in translating into tangible developments. Take the planned sale of F-35 jets, for instance. While the announcement is being hailed in Riyadh as a breakthrough, the deal remains contingent on US legal and diplomatic requirements designed to preserve Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME) in the region. This creates inherent uncertainty: any perceived erosion of Israel’s advantage could trigger legal or political roadblocks in Washington, delaying or even derailing deliveries. Adding to Saudi frustrations is the precedent of the UAE’s stalled F-35 deal, which could not materialize despite Abu Dhabi’s formal commitment to normalise relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia, in contrast, has offered no comparable diplomatic assurances, and MBS has repeatedly emphasized that the Kingdom’s participation in the Abraham Accords is conditional on the establishment of a “clear path” to a Palestinian state. That condition, of course, collides with reality: Israel has categorically rejected any possibility of creating a Palestinian state, leaving Riyadh in a position where the very linchpin of its security and normalization strategy is effectively unattainable. In other words, while the F-35 sale is a headline-grabbing symbol of closer US-Saudi ties, political, legal, and regional constraints severely limit the likelihood of it becoming a concrete, operational reality in the near term.
Riyadh’s challenges do not end there. Within the US, voices in the so-called “deep state” are already raising objections, warning that transferring F-35 technology to Saudi Arabia could inadvertently expose sensitive systems to China. Whether these concerns are fully grounded or more precautionary in nature, they reflect a broader anxiety in Washington about Saudi Arabia’s deepening ties with Beijing. MBS has so far offered no assurances — public or private — that Riyadh will scale back or limit its engagement with China, leaving a key pillar of US strategic expectations unaddressed. For Washington, this creates a fundamental tension: while the arms sales, investments, and agreements on AI and nuclear energy suggest a strengthened partnership, the absence of clear alignment on China raises doubts about whether the US-Saudi relationship can evolve into a truly strategic alliance, rather than remaining a transactional, short-term arrangement.
In effect, the Kingdom’s ambitions for regional and global leverage bump up against the realpolitik constraints of US strategic interests, highlighting that symbolic deals and public declarations are not sufficient to guarantee durable cooperation. The coming months will test whether this high-profile rapprochement can translate into a durable partnership or whether it will prove to be another flashy, transactional episode in a long history of US-Saudi entanglements.
Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs
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