U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman during an arrival ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 18, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Former CIA counter-terrorism expert Marc Polymeropoulos said President Donald Trump appears to be caving on U.S. Demands that the Saudi government address its many human rights violations and normalize relations with Israel before granting Saudi Arabia access to more lethal U.S. weaponry.
“One of the things about this visit that I think is a little odd is the idea of a defense pact with Saudi Arabia,” said Polymeropoulos. “The idea of [sharing] F-35s, of sharing nuclear technology all was supposed to come with what Saudi would do, which would be normalization with Israel. I mean, there was there was two sides of this and right now we seem to be just giving the Saudis everything.”
On Tuesday, Trump welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, to the White House with an elaborate display, signaling his administration's close ties to the Saudi kingdom as the president aims to lock in major business and national security deals, according to CBS News.
But Polymeropoulos questioned the mingling of those deals, particularly in terms of how much they enrich Trump’s family.
“We're giving Saudi all of these kinds of things and this boon without getting anything in return, which everybody really wants, which is normalization,” Polymeropoulos said, pointing out that Trump’s financial involvement with the nation’s leaders should be throwing up warnings to anybody concerned with corruption.
“Of course, this is absolutely unprecedented. But so many things in the Trump presidency is always unprecedented,” Polymeropoulos said. “The Trump brand is going to go on golf courses and hotels throughout the kingdom. Trump's kids are involved with business interests, and of course, Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, has been very close to MBS for years. And so, there is kind of this mix of personal and private [business], which under normal kind of rules of ethics is really frowned upon, but it just doesn't seem to matter for this, this administration.”
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