President Donald Trump hosted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the White House on Tuesday, with the Saudi de facto ruler seeking to further rehabilitate his global image after the 2018 killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi and deepen ties with Washington.

Making his first White House visit in more than seven years, the crown prince was greeted with a lavish display of pomp and ceremony presided over by Trump on the South Lawn, complete with a military honor guard, a cannon salute and a flyover by U.S. warplanes.

Talks between the two leaders are expected to advance security ties, civil nuclear cooperation and multibillion-dollar business deals with the kingdom. But there will likely be no major breakthrough on Saudi Arabia normalizing ties with Israel, despite pressure from Trump for such a landmark move.

The meeting underscores a key relationship — between the world’s biggest economy and the top oil exporter — that Trump has made a high priority in his second term as the international uproar around the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi insider-turned-critic, has gradually faded.

U.S. intelligence concluded that bin Salman approved the capture or killing of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The crown prince denied ordering the operation but acknowledged responsibility as the kingdom’s de facto ruler.

The warm welcome for bin Salman in Washington is the latest sign that relations have recovered from the deep strain caused by Khashoggi’s murder.

Trump greeted bin Salman with a smile and a handshake on the red carpet, while dozens of military personnel lined the perimeter. The limousine was escorted up the South Drive by a U.S. Army mounted honor guard. The two leaders then looked skyward as fighter jets roared overhead, before Trump led his guest inside.

Before sitting down for talks, the two leaders chatted amiably as Trump gave bin Salman a tour of presidential portraits lining the wall outside the Oval Office.

During a day of White House diplomacy, bin Salman will hold talks with Trump in the Oval Office, have lunch in the Cabinet Room and attend a formal black-tie dinner in the evening, giving it many of the trappings of a state visit. U.S. and Saudi flags festooned lamp posts in front of the White House.

Trump expects to build on a $600 billion Saudi investment pledge made during his visit to the kingdom in May, which will include the announcement of dozens of targeted projects, a senior U.S. administration official said.

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia were ready to strike deals on Tuesday for defense sales, enhanced cooperation on civil nuclear energy and a multibillion-dollar investment in U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Trump told reporters on Monday, “We’ll be selling” F-35s to Saudi, which has requested to buy 48 of the advanced aircraft.

This would be the first U.S. sale of the fighter jets to Saudi Arabia and mark a significant policy shift. The deal could alter the military balance in the Middle East and test Washington’s definition of maintaining what the U.S. has termed Israel’s “qualitative military edge.” Until now, Israel has been the only country in the Middle East to have the F-35.

Beyond military equipment, the Saudi leader is seeking new security guarantees. Most experts expect Trump to issue an executive order creating the kind of defense pact he recently gave to Qatar but still short of the congressionally ratified NATO-style treaty the Saudis initially sought.

EYE ON CHINA

Former U.S. negotiator in the Middle East Dennis Ross, who is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, said Trump wants to develop a multifaceted relationship that keeps Saudi Arabia out of China’s sphere.

“President Trump believes all these steps bind the Saudis increasingly to us on a range of issues, ranging from security to the finance-AI-energy nexus. He wants them bound to us on these issues and not China,” Ross said.

Trump is expected to keep up pressure on bin Salman for Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel.

The Saudis have been reluctant to take such a major step without a clear path to Palestinian statehood, a goal that has been forced to the backburner as the region grapples with the Gaza war.

Trump reached Abraham Accords agreements between Israel and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan during his first term in 2020. In recent weeks, Kazakhstan agreed to join.

But Trump has always seen Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords as the linchpin to achieving a wider Middle East peace.

“It’s very important to him that they join the Abraham Accords during his term and so he has been hyping up the pressure on that,” the senior White House official said.

Jonathan Panikoff, former deputy national intelligence officer on the Middle East, said that while Trump will urge bin Salman to move toward normalizing ties with Israel, any lack of progress there is unlikely to hinder reaching a new U.S.-Saudi security pact.

“President Trump’s desire for investment into the U.S., which the crown prince previously promised, could help soften the ground for expanding defense ties even as the president is determined to advance Israeli-Saudi normalization,” said Panikoff, now at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington.

Source: Reuters

– Agencies

On a brilliant summer day near Santa Barbara last week, a group of friends got together, met by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, better known as Harry and Meghan. It was a meeting of an exclusive club, one that no one wanted to join. Most of the parents here have lost a child – directly or indirectly – as a result of exposure to online social media. 

Harry and Meghan are trying to give them, and parents like them, someplace to turn for help. It’s called The Parents’ Network, in association with the couple’s charitable Archewell Foundation, and it officially launches today.   

Meghan Markle herself knows a thing or two about online bullying, and of course her husband, Harry, is no stranger to that, either … or to unspeakable grief.

Pauley asked, “The central topic is the loss that these families have suffered, stories that need to be shared, because the parents who are listening who have not suffered a loss think that they couldn’t. But they could.” 

“They certainly could,” Harry said. “And that’s, I think, one of the scariest things that we’ve learnt over the course of the last 16, 17 years that social media’s been around, and more so recently, is the fact that it could happen to absolutely anybody.  We always talk about in the olden days if your kids were under your roof, you knew what they were up to; at least they were safe, right?  And now, they could be in the next-door room on a tablet or on a phone and can be going down these rabbit holes. And before you know it, within 24 hours, they could be taking their life.”

Meghan said, “Our kids are young; they’re three and five. They’re amazing.  But all you want to do as parents is protect them. And so, as we can see what’s happening in the online space, we know that there’s a lot of work to be done there, and we’re just happy to be able to be a part of change for good.”

“Well, you hope that when your children ask for help, someone, you know, is there to give it,” said Pauley.

“If you know how to help, right?” said Harry. “At this point, we’ve got to the stage where almost every parent needs to be a first responder. And even the best first responders in the world wouldn’t be able to tell the signs of possible suicide. Like, that is the terrifying piece of this.”

It’s something Donna and Chris Dawley know all too well; their 17-year old son, C.J., died from suicide after what they believe was depression fueled by social media use.

“We had no idea what happened to our son,” said Donna. “You know, he had a beautiful car. He had a job he liked.”

“Sisters that loved him, parents that adored him,” said Chris.

“And he was happy,” said Donna. “He was a happy kid.”

And like so many parents in their place, the Dawleys say a factor in their son’s depression and death was his smartphone – a device designed to be so addictive that he couldn’t put it down, not even in the minutes before he died.  “He still had it in his hand, the phone; that’s how addicted he was,” said Donna. “He couldn’t even kill himself without posting about it first.”

And like the Dawleys, it’s often impossible for parents, or anyone else, to see that someone was so deep in despair that they’d consider taking their own life. 

Meghan has been there, as she told Oprah Winfrey in 2021: “Look, I was really ashamed to say it at the time, and ashamed to have to admit it to Harry especially, because I know how much loss he suffered. But I knew that if I didn’t say it, that I would do it … and I just didn’t want to be alive anymore.”

Pauley asked her, “You had an experience that connects you to these families – and I see you touch your husband’s hand in just the way I knew that you would be looking after each other if I went places – but the connection that you have with people is they know you had suffered, too, personally. Contemplating killing yourself is what suicidal ideation was. And I’m dancing around this because I could see you’re uncomfortable with my even going there…”

“I understand why you are, though – I wasn’t expecting it, but I understand why you are, because there is a through-line, I think,” Meghan said. “And when you’ve been through any level of pain or trauma, I believe part of our healing journey (certainly part of mine) is being able to be really open about it. And you know, I haven’t really scraped the surface on my experience. But I do think that I would never want someone else to feel that way. And I would never want someone else to be making those sort of plans. And I would never want someone else to not be believed.

“So, if me voicing what I have overcome will save someone, or encourage someone in their life to really genuinely check in on them and not assume that the appearance is good, so everything’s okay, then that’s worth it,” Meghan said. “I’ll take a hit for that.”

This in-person gathering was just for the launch – the Parents’ Network will meet mostly online. But group facilitator Leora Wolf-Prusan said the important thing is what the group will talk about: “We’re gonna stop expecting you to be ‘done’ with your grief in a year,” she told Pauley. “We’re gonna stop telling you that we’re tired of hearing the stories of internet harm. Like, we will say your kid’s name over and over again, ’cause they existed, and they mattered. And that we know that it wasn’t your fault. That’s it, right? It wasn’t your fault. This happened to you. And now we as a community get to create something with you.”

Some of the group’s charter members are Taj and Selene Swanson-Jensen, whose son, Tanner, died from an overdose of drugs pushed online; Brandy and Toney Roberts, who lost their daughter, Englyn, to suicide after online bullying; and Perla Mendoza, whose son, Eli, died when a painkiller he bought online was actually a lethal dose of fentanyl.

Pauley said, “Thank you for being here. But I have to ask: Why would you do this?”

Taj replied, “Simple answer: So others don’t have to live what we’ve lived, and will continue to live.”

Perla said, “I don’t expect anything from anyone. This is just a labor of love in honor of my son and all the other children that have lost their lives to fentanyl. This is for the mother who cannot get out of bed, for the dad that won’t leave his house. I stand here for them, too. And I hope that one day, when it’s my turn to go home, I’ll see my son, and he’ll tell me, ‘Good job, Mama.'”

The idea here is that there is comfort, and power, in numbers, with the goal (as Harry himself once said) of turning pain into purpose.

Meghan said, “I think you have to start somewhere. I think the simplest thing that anyone watching this or anyone who’s able to make change to look at it through the lens of, ‘What if it was my daughter? What if it was my son? My son, or my daughter who comes home, who are joyful, who I love, and one day, right under my roof, our entire lives change because of something that was completely out of our control?’ And if you look at it through the lens as a parent, there is no way to see that any other way than to try to find a solution.”

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If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or a suicidal crisis, you can reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. You can also chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline here.

For more information about mental health care resources and support, The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) HelpLine can be reached Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m. ET, at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or email info@nami.org.

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Story produced by John D’Amelio and Julie Kracov. Editor: Steven Tyler.