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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s recent White House visit has crystallized a fundamental shift in U.S.-Saudi relations: Washington no longer has the leverage to demand Saudi normalization with Israel.

After the Biden administration distanced itself from Riyadh following the 2018 Jamal Khashoggi killing, Washington has now recalibrated. This was driven not by diplomacy or values alignment but by structural pressures, including the political blowback that Washington has faced for its military and diplomatic support for Israel’s Gaza campaign, which strained U.S. credibility across the region. Key to these structural pressures were supply-chain vulnerabilities exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, the shock to global energy markets after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the intensifying strategic competition with China across technology, manufacturing, and critical minerals. But perhaps most significant of all was the fragmentation of politics in the wider Arab world region following the Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s war on Gaza — a war widely condemned for its scale of civilian destruction and the displacement of nearly the entire population of Gaza, which sent shockwaves throughout the region.

Riyadh has understood this recalibration with notable precision, extracting significant concessions without providing movement on the issue both U.S. administrations sought, albeit to different degrees: formal political normalization with Israel. The crown prince has effectively decoupled U.S.-Saudi strategic cooperation from diplomatic normalization, resisting Biden-era pressure and the expectations carried over from President Donald Trump’s first term. The Saudi message is clear: Alignment with American strategic interests matters, but full policy convergence will not happen, and transactionalism cuts both ways, which is also why Sudan came up during this trip. This represents not merely a tactical concession but a structural recalibration, one that reflects eroded American leverage and Riyadh’s growing capacity for strategic patience in a fragmented international (dis)order.

A Strategic Package Driven by U.S. Imperatives

The agreements announced in Washington represent one of the most consequential reconfigurations of U.S.-Saudi relations in decades. The two countries agreed to a new strategic defense agreement designed to formalize security cooperation. Though not a mutual defense treaty, it marks a significant upgrade in the bilateral security architecture, as does Saudi Arabia’s designation as a “major non-NATO ally” — an awkward-sounding arms sales relationship. Indeed, the United States also signaled readiness to advance the long-stalled F-35 sale, even if it was reported thereafter that Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Israelis that Riyadh would get a downgraded version of the fighter — as compared to what Israel currently receives — in order to maintain Israel’s so-called qualitative military edge, which is a U.S. legal commitment.

Having said that, the F-35s are not the major story here and were never going to be. On the nuclear file, Washington and Riyadh announced a civilian cooperation framework. Non-proliferation experts have raised concerns that the “gold standard” provisions requiring foregoing domestic uranium enrichment and reprocessing appear weakened. U.S. officials publicly maintain that the current arrangement does not permit enrichment and remains focused strictly on civilian power generation, but scrutiny of the agreement’s language on future enrichment capabilities and inspection regime scope remains as implementation details emerge.

Bilateral nuclear cooperation carries particular strategic significance given Saudi Arabia’s substantial uranium reserves. The Jabal Sayid deposit alone contains approximately 31,000 tons of uranium, positioning the kingdom as a potential alternative supplier to the U.S. nuclear industry at a time when Russia and China control over half of global uranium enrichment capacity. Following the May 2024 Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act, which banned Russian low-enriched uranium imports through 2040, Saudi uranium could serve as a critical alternative supply.

The White House meeting also yielded a new framework positioning Saudi capital to support U.S. semiconductor fabrication, AI development, and advanced manufacturing. Saudi officials and U.S. interlocutors have referenced investment figures exceeding $100 billion, following the Crown Prince’s Oval Office statement — though this reflects intentions and strategic alignment rather than fully contracted sums.

Finally, complementing this new dimension of strategic ties is a significant and substantial bilateral initiative on critical minerals and rare earth elements. U.S. officials have described these resources as essential to reducing dependence on Chinese supply chains and securing long-term resilience in sectors ranging from electric vehicles to defense systems, explicitly noting as such in relation to a recent deal the United States signed with Australia.

The Critical Minerals Dimension: Reducing China’s Leverage

The minerals cooperation represents a particularly strategic component of the bilateral relationship. Saudi Arabia is home to the Jabal Sayid deposit, believed to hold the fourth most valuable reserves of rare earth elements globally. These reserves are critically important because the United States primarily produces light rare earths and remains dependent on imports for heavy rare earths — a vulnerability Beijing has repeatedly exploited through tightening export controls.

Heavy rare earths are core inputs for advanced U.S. defense capabilities: F-35 fighters, Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines, Tomahawk missiles, radar systems, Predator drones, and precision-guided weapons. They are also foundational to critical civilian technologies, from automotive semiconductors to magnetic resonance imaging machines and cancer-treatment systems. In a major development, the U.S. Department of Defense announced it will finance a 49 percent equity stake in a new rare earths refinery in Saudi Arabia, partnering with Maaden (67 percent owned by the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund) and MP Materials. The department will fully finance the U.S. stake while MP Materials supplies technical expertise, and Maaden holds the remaining 51 percent equity. This partnership reflects Saudi Arabia’s rapid transformation under Vision 2030 into a major player in the global critical minerals landscape.

The sequencing reveals American strategic imperatives. Washington front-loaded sensitive technology cooperation, high-end defense sales, and upgraded security assurances without obtaining any Saudi commitment on normalization of relations with Israel. The Trump administration views Saudi capital as essential to reshoring semiconductor manufacturing and reducing exposure to Chinese supply chains. It seeks predictability in how Saudi Arabia engages in pricing Saudi oil, to manage American domestic inflation and avoid domestic political fallout from rising fuel prices. It relies on Saudi defense procurement to sustain elements of the U.S. industrial base. And it wants alignment with Riyadh in the broader strategic contest with China, from semiconductor standards to infrastructure finance in the developing countries in particularly Africa and Asia.

These moves reflect structural American needs, not inducements crafted to unlock Saudi progress on normalization. For now, Riyadh sees transactional benefit in moving along in the same direction on these files.

Riyadh’s Commitments and Its Calculated Ambiguity

The timing of the visit was in Riyadh’s favor. The crown prince negotiated during a period of acute U.S. anxiety about Chinese technological dominance and supply chain vulnerabilities, when Washington needed visible wins on economic security.

The kingdom signaled investment commitments into U.S. technology, manufacturing, and energy-adjacent sectors, though the binding nature and timelines remain ambiguous. Energy coordination continues, with Riyadh maintaining approximately two to three million barrels per day of spare oil production capacity and cooperation with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries “plus” grouping on production management to stabilize global markets. Defense cooperation will expand through the new strategic defense agreement’s consultation mechanisms and procurement pipeline.

But on normalization with Israel, Riyadh offered only calibrated diplomatic language acknowledging normalization as a distant possibility contingent on progress toward Palestinian statehood. In private, it’s reported Trump pushed the crown prince to move towards normalization — and the crown prince made it clear Saudi society wouldn’t accept such a move, at least at present. The crown prince has repeatedly and publicly said that Palestinian statehood, or at least an irreversible path towards it, is a precondition for normalization — and no conceivable Israeli government for the foreseeable future would accept that. As such, there were no concrete timelines, confidence-building measures, or specific steps indicating imminent movement. Saudi officials privately and publicly indicate that the calculus hasn’t changed since 2023. If anything, Riyadh is more convinced that normalization carries prohibitive political costs, particularly in light of Israel’s continued settlement expansion and systematic violence in the West Bank, which have made the prospect of any credible peace process increasingly remote.

This asymmetry was deliberate. The crown prince has secured advanced weapons access, nuclear cooperation, technology partnerships, and upgraded defense assurances without binding himself to a politically costly move toward Israel — particularly amid Israel’s assault on Gaza, destructive policies in the occupied West Bank, and acute Arab public anger at Israel’s regional conduct. The war has exacerbated anger in the region and worldwide — a war that U.N. bodies and human rights organizations have characterized as genocide. A case is currently at the International Court of Justice investigating that very charge against Israel, and the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister on charges of war crimes. The crown prince simply cannot afford to move forward with political normalization with Israel. Arab publics remain outraged about Israel’s behavior in Gaza, but also in Lebanon, Syria, Qatar, and beyond, where Israeli airstrikes have repeatedly escalated regional tensions and undermined U.S. diplomatic efforts to prevent a broader conflict. For Arab governments, Israel behaving as if it can set the rules, bypass neighbors, and impose outcomes without regard to regional consequences in the last two years makes it even more threatening to regional security than Iran. That is in spite of the fact that a substantial number of Arab governments regard Tehran as a tremendously bad faith actor.

Riyadh’s approach reflects a broader regional reality: In a fragmented strategic environment, U.S. leverage derived from withholding technology, arms, or diplomatic access has eroded. Saudi Arabia possesses alternatives: Chinese investment in a new development zone and renewable energy projects, potential Russian S-400 sales to complement American systems, and increasing capacity for strategic autonomy through domestic arms production partnerships with South Korea and others. What Washington once treated as leverage has become a set of deliverables Riyadh can obtain through strategic patience.

Comments by different politicians and media in the United States suggested Washington was turning the page on the Khashoggi affair — a murder where American officials had previously laid ultimate responsibility at least partially on the crown prince. Notably, the level of criticism leveled at the crown prince for that crime seemed far more extensive and sustained than the reception Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received in Washington despite the killing of Palestinian journalists at unprecedented rates during the past two years, which many rights groups have insisted were deliberately targeted. The difference did not go unnoticed in the wider Arab world, a disparity that reinforced a perception that U.S. human rights standards are selectively applied.

The Sudan Dimension: Regional Friction and U.S. Re-Engagement

During the visit, the crown prince also raised the ongoing conflict in Sudan as a core regional priority, underscoring how the war’s spillover risks — refugee flows, maritime security threats in the Red Sea, and humanitarian catastrophe — intersect with Saudi security concerns. Riyadh has pushed for a diplomatic track centered on negotiations in Jeddah, positioning itself as a responsible regional stakeholder capable of mediating complex conflicts.

This stands in contrast to widespread regional and Western assessments that the United Arab Emirates has provided material backing to the Rapid Support Forces, while Saudi Arabia and other Arab states support the Sudanese Armed Forces, which remains the internationally recognized government. Abu Dhabi denies these accusations, but this has all generated friction in Emirati-Saudi coordination. The resulting dynamics have opened a new arena in which the United States upping its engagement on this issue will shape regional calculations. Trump’s circle has signaled an intention to engage more directly in Sudan, presenting U.S. involvement as part of a broader push for greater involvement in the Red Sea corridor.

The Sudan conflict thus becomes another variable in the transactional framework: Riyadh seeks U.S. backing for its diplomatic approach and pressure — formal or informal — on all external actors implicated in the conflict, while Washington needs Saudi cooperation on Red Sea security and humanitarian access. Neither the normalization question nor the Sudan file operates in isolation. Both illustrate a new pattern in which U.S.-Saudi cooperation is pursued issue-by-issue rather than through a comprehensive grand bargain.

Implications and Durability

The U.S.-Saudi framework is transactional, interest-based, and unencumbered by the normalization prerequisites that shaped U.S. policy from the Abraham Accords through early 2024. Several implications follow. Washington’s ability to condition strategic cooperation on political deliverables has diminished. Other regional actors such as the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Jordan will observe that Riyadh obtained major concessions without normalization with Israel.

The Israelis themselves are already concerned that the military edge Tel Aviv has maintained is becoming less impressive compared to several neighbors. One might expect this would drive Tel Aviv to understand it cannot rely on American pressure to deliver Arab normalization, and thus move toward steps vis-à-vis Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon to make normalization more politically feasible. But the Israeli political spectrum has been clear in this regard, and its reliance on overwhelming coercive force has further alienated regional populations, making political normalization increasingly untenable. Normalization is off the table for now — and that will also signal to other Arab states previously pressured to normalize with Israel (namely Lebanon and Syria) that strategic partnership with Washington can be thoroughly decoupled from formally recognizing Israel. The dynamic of normalization is very much on the back foot. Israeli leaders assumed Arab states would prioritize security ties with Washington over Palestinian rights, but this is no longer as mutually exclusive as it might have seemed, and the Gaza war has elevated the Palestine question as something of a litmus test of political legitimacy.

The key question is durability. Deep strategic cooperation can persist despite political divergence. U.S.-Saudi relations during the Cold War proceeded despite profound differences on Arab-Israeli issues. The difference is that those relationships were built on converging threat perceptions — Soviet expansionism — rather than transactional exchange.

The U.S.-Saudi relationship now rests on mutual but not entirely symmetrical needs. Washington needs Saudi capital, energy cooperation, and alignment against China. Riyadh needs American technology, weapons, and security architecture. Neither side possesses sufficient leverage to compel the other on issues outside this convergence zone. Normalization with Israel is not abandoned. It is simply removed as a gating requirement and placed on an indefinite timeline contingent on developments Washington cannot control. Nor can Washington continue to assume that shielding Israel diplomatically — at the U.N. Security Council or through continued military transfers — comes without strategic cost. The Gaza war has demonstrated that these choices directly constrain U.S. ability to build coalitions, stabilize the region, and advance its own security interests.

Early indications from both capitals suggest that policymakers judge the benefits of this convergence to outweigh the costs of abandoning normalization as a near-term objective. For now, the framework holds: strategic convergence without normalization, transactionalism without transformation, cooperation without the comprehensive realignment Washington once sought. This trajectory seems likely to define U.S.-Saudi relations for the coming decade, with implications that extend well beyond the bilateral relationship to reshape regional order, American influence, and the prospects for Arab-Israeli relations across the Middle East. Whether this represents sustainable statecraft or a temporary accommodation before more fundamental choices become unavoidable remains the defining question for U.S. Middle East policy in the years ahead.

H. A. Hellyer, Ph.D., has operated at the nexus of government policy and think tanks for the past 20 years, focusing on geopolitics and security, in the wider Arab world and Middle East region, as well as Europe and Southeast Asia. He currently serves as senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Formerly deputy convenor of the U.K. government’s working group on tackling radicalization and extremism, Hellyer has held positions at the Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment, and the U.K. Foreign Office.

Image: The White House