When it comes to the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, it's complicated
Consider This from NPR
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🗓️ 18 November 2025
⏱️ 13 minutes
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Summary
President Trump is deepening the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, despite the government coming under fire for human right abuses, despite the concerns the prince himself ordered the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Why is Saudi Arabia such an important ally for the United States?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | President Biden once vowed to make Saudi Arabia a pariah state. |
| 0:04.0 | We were going to, in fact, make them pay the price and make them, in fact, the pariah that they are. |
| 0:10.0 | And by pay the price, Biden is referring to the Saudi government's role in the 2018 murder |
| 0:15.5 | of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The U.S. intelligence community concluded |
| 0:20.6 | that Saudi crown prince |
| 0:22.0 | Muhammad bin Salman approved the killing. Saudi Arabia has denied his role. There's very little |
| 0:27.3 | social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia. But after promising to punish the |
| 0:34.8 | kingdom, Biden changed his tune. After he became president, Biden traveled |
| 0:39.3 | to Riyadh in 2022 to rebuild relations, but kept the Saudi government in arms length away until today. |
| 0:45.8 | We have an extremely respected man in the Oval Office today and a friend of mine for a long time, a very good friend of mine. |
| 0:54.7 | President Trump welcomed the Crown Prince to the White House with a level of pomp and circumstance rarely on display. |
| 1:01.3 | There was a military flyover. |
| 1:04.0 | And a welcome from the U.S. Marine ban. |
| 1:07.2 | Mohammed bin Salman last visited the U.S. seven years ago, just months before Khashoggi's death. |
| 1:13.2 | The Crown Prince has denied responsibility for the killing. |
| 1:16.1 | Here he is at the White House on Tuesday. |
| 1:18.1 | It's been painful for us in Saudi Arabia. |
| 1:19.8 | We've did all the right steps of investigation, et cetera, in Saudi Arabia, and we've |
| 1:26.7 | improved our system to be sure that nothing happened like that. |
| 1:30.9 | And it's painful and it's a huge mistake. |
| 1:32.7 | And we are doing our best that this doesn't happen again. |
| 1:35.8 | Trump dismissed the findings Tuesday. |
... |
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