- ARAB NEWS
- 15 Dec 2025
Since 1975
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has opened “a new chapter in a long-standing relationship” with the US with a visit that produced a strategic defense deal, expanded economic and tech ties, and closer coordination on regional crises, according to Fahad Nazer, spokesperson for the Saudi Embassy in Washington.
The visit, dubbed by many as “historic,” highlighted every major pillar of a partnership that goes back 80 years, he said during an appearance on “Frankly Speaking,” the Arab News current affairs program.
“I really do believe that the visit marks a new chapter in a long-standing relationship,” Nazer said, describing a relationship that is “multidimensional” and has “always included political cooperation on a number of fronts,” as well as long-standing security, military and economic cooperation.
From the start, he said, trade between the two countries “has been a pillar of the relationship.”
During the Saudi crown prince’s latest visit, that multidimensional character was underlined by a series of agreements, including a strategic defense deal, an accord on the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, an agreement on artificial intelligence and a pact on educational cooperation and coordination.
“This is a mutually beneficial relationship that has endured — not only endured, but I’d argue that it’s continued to evolve over time,” Nazer told “Frankly Speaking” host Katie Jensen.
On the economic side, one of the most talked-about announcements was Saudi Arabia’s intention to increase its investments in the US from about $600 billion to around $1 trillion over time. Asked whether the Kingdom has the fiscal space to make such a pledge credible given current oil prices and domestic priorities, Nazer replied: “I think that we do.”
He said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made it clear in the Oval Office that these pledges and investments are “mutually beneficial relationships.”
This has been true, according to Nazer, of the broader economic dimension of the partnership too: “When it comes to the economic dimension, when it comes to the trade, when it comes to the investment. This has been mutually beneficial from the get-go.”
Citing American companies such as Bechtel, Pepsi, GE and GM, which “have been in Saudi Arabia for decades,” and newer giants such as Amazon, Cisco and Google that are now helping to drive the Kingdom’s transformation, Nazer said the model has been “fairly consistent.”
“American companies come to Saudi Arabia, they set up offices, they set up factories, they employ Saudis, they share know-how, they share expertise,” he said. “It’s a win-win as far as we’re concerned, and we are going to invest in the United States for sure. But it’s not just pure investments one-way. It’s really kind of two-way trade, two-way investments, where everybody comes out a winner at the end, we believe.”
He stressed that Saudi Arabia’s vision is for the private sector to drive both domestic growth and foreign investment. “We want to, and we’ve tried to, empower the private sector over the past few years,” he said, pointing to funds such as the Public Investment Fund that have supported key sectors and to reforms aimed at “streamlining regulations,” making capital “more affordable” and making it easier for foreign investors to enter the Saudi market.
“That’s a big part of Vision 2030,” he said, noting that foreign direct investment has been “going up consistently” and that “a big percentage of it is going, or rather coming, from American companies.”
Nazer recalled that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, during President Trump’s visit to the Kingdom in May, cited “1,300 American companies doing business in Saudi Arabia,” a number he expects “to actually increase over time.”
On the Saudi side, Nazer pointed to major firms such as Aramco and SABIC, which “have evolved and continue to grow over the years,” alongside a rapidly expanding small and medium-sized enterprise sector.
“We’ve empowered our SME sectors — the small and medium enterprises — many of whom, by the way, have been established by women, I think, 40 percent of SMEs last year were established by women,” he said.
“We’re empowering all business leaders, whether you’re a small business, whether you’re Saudi-owned or you have foreign partners.”
Nazer said a new global mindset is evident among Saudi entrepreneurs. “Nobody thinks of their local — nobody thinks locally anymore,” he said.
“I think every business owner thinks globally right off the bat. And we have the tools now. They have the tools to sell their goods and services all around the world. I think (that is) what makes this the age that we live in so interesting and so exciting. And that’s certainly the case in Saudi Arabia with Vision 2030 because we’ve created all of these new sectors from the ground up, (starting with) tourism.”
A key item on the agenda of the crown prince’s visit was security cooperation, which resulted in a strategic defense agreement and Washington’s designation of Saudi Arabia as a major non-NATO ally.
Nazer said security and military cooperation “has been a pillar of the relationship really for decades.”
“The US has been our main strategic partner, again, when it comes to strategic, security and military affairs,” he said. “And the agreement that was signed and announced the other day will ensure that we continue to work closely to make sure, again, that our people are safe and our borders are secure.”
Asked whether such commitments would survive beyond President Donald Trump’s current term, given recent swings in US foreign policy, Nazer urged observers to look at the long arc of the Saudi-US partnership.
“The best thing about the relationship is, as I said at the outset, it dates back 80 years. And in that time, it’s continued to not only … not only has it endured, but it’s really been able to flourish and to deepen and to strengthen and to broaden,” he said.
“We’re taking the long view here,” he said. “The long view is over the past 80 years or so, regardless of who was in the White House, the relationship has been on a steady trajectory in the sense that it’s not only deepened — it’s deepened, broadened and strengthened under both Democratic and Republican administrations. That is true when it comes to economic cooperation and trade. That is true when it comes to military cooperation. and security cooperation.”
Pointing to shared military campaigns, Nazer said: “Not only have Saudi Arabia and the US fought two wars side by side — the first was in 1990, when we helped liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein’s troops, and then we again worked very closely to expel the terrorist group Daesh from Iraq and Syria. In between all of that, we have ongoing military training, joint military exercises, and those certainly have always taken place under both the Republican and Democratic administrations.”
Nazer argued that American policymakers increasingly recognize Saudi Arabia’s centrality to regional security and stability. “There’s a realization in the US that Saudi Arabia occupies a very unique and important position in the Arab world as the world’s biggest economy,” he said, adding that the Kingdom also has “a unique, I would say, argue of a leadership position in the broader Islamic world.”
“I think that there’s an expectation among Arab majority nations, an expectation among Muslim majority nations, for Saudi Arabia to play a leadership role in trying to resolve and address some of the challenges that these two communities face,” he said.
“We’ve long embraced this expectation and this leadership role, and I think that there’s a realization here in the US that for the Middle East to enjoy peace and prosperity, Saudi Arabia has to play a very important role. We are a force for good. Often, we play a very important mediating role between nations and sometimes between factions within nations. We’ve done that for decades, going all the way back to the civil war in Lebanon.”
One highly scrutinized element of the defense package was Trump’s promise that the advanced F-35 fighter jet would be delivered to Saudi Arabia. Nazer declined to discuss specifics. “We typically don’t speak about the specifics of defense agreements and defense packages or particular defensive platforms,” he said. “What I can tell you is that obviously this is an ongoing conversation that we’re having with the administration. … We will make sure that our needs are met.”
“We will make sure that we are in possession of the most advanced weapons to meet our national security needs,” he added, noting that “the world we live in is ever evolving, the security threats are ever evolving.”
On timelines, he said: “I don’t have a specific timeline, but based on the statement that was issued a couple of days ago from the Ministry of Defense and our counterparts here in the US, the conversation is going very well, and we will continue to have the conversation and make sure that our defense and security needs are met.”
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit also saw significant progress on civil nuclear cooperation. Some observers have questioned why Saudi Arabia, as one of the world’s largest oil producers and a major investor in renewables, needs nuclear energy at all.
Nazer said it “makes perfect sense” as part of a strategy to diversify the energy mix and confront climate change.
“Over the past few years, we have been investing heavily in producing renewable clean energy,” he said. “Solar is one where we’re investing and improving and increasing our capacity year by year. Wind is another source of renewable — again where we’re investing and producing and beginning to get some of that energy to meet our domestic energy needs. We’re also producing green and blue hydrogen.”
“We’re diversifying our energy mix for a couple of reasons,” he said. “One of them is to mitigate the impact of climate change. We believe that climate change is a very real threat. And so we are investing heavily in all of these renewables. Nuclear energy is obviously a renewable, clean energy. So, it makes perfect sense for us to do that.”
He also pointed to soaring domestic demand. “Saudi Arabia’s population essentially has increased by sevenfold from 1970 to last year,” he said. “I think our population was five million in 1970. Last year, we had our most comprehensive census conducted, and our population had crossed 35 million.
“That’s a seven-fold increase. With that increase, obviously, has come tremendous demand on our energy needs. So, we have multiple reasons why we are diversifying the energy mix, and nuclear energy has to be part of that mix for sure.”
Beyond nuclear, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit underscored a deepening partnership in technology and artificial intelligence. “Saudi Arabia is becoming a hub for artificial intelligence,” Nazer said. He noted that the broader debate on AI often misses the fact that it “requires a lot of space, but it also requires a lot of energy,” both of which Saudi Arabia has “in abundance,” along with “the political will.”
“We believe that artificial intelligence will hold the key to meeting a lot of the challenges that we as an international community face,” he said. “It’s already beginning to change the way people live, the way people work, the way that we learn and study. It obviously has tremendous applications in healthcare and otherwise. So, we are moving forward with that.”
With US firms at “the leading edge of this technology,” Nazer pointed to a raft of recent agreements “between Saudi — primarily Saudi Arabia’s Humain, which is our primary artificial intelligence company, but also with some of the biggest leaders here in the US; with Nvidia, AMD, Cisco, I believe, but also (Tesla CEO) Elon Musk’s xAI.”
Regional diplomacy also featured prominently in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s discussions in Washington, especially the war in Sudan. Nazer said Saudi Arabia’s engagement there reflects a consistent approach to crises across the Arab world.
He declined to say what specific steps Washington should take, but was clear about what Riyadh wants to see. “A successful attempt is obviously to bring the destruction and the fighting to an end,” he said. The conflict over the past two years has brought “deaths, the displacement of people potentially by the millions, according to some figures,” and created “a refugee problem.”
Saudi Arabia, he said, has been engaged “from the get-go,” hosting representatives from both main factions “shortly after the beginning of the conflict a couple of years ago” in what became known as the Jeddah Process. “Obviously we will continue to push and promote for dialogue and a peaceful resolution of the conflict,” he said. “We believe that’s the only way forward.”
Another major development discussed was the US-backed resolution outlining a pathway to a Palestinian state. For Saudi Arabia, Nazer said, this aligns with a long-standing position.
“Saudi Arabia’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been clear and consistent for decades,” he said.
He recalled that “it was the late King Abdullah who, all the way back in 2002, presented what is now known as the Arab Peace Initiative,” which “basically offers Israel normalization, not just with Saudi Arabia, but with all 21 member nations of the League of Arab Nations in return for a full and comprehensive peace with the Palestinians based on a two-state solution.”
That offer, he said, “is still on the table.”
Nazer described the recent “carnage, the crisis in Gaza” as “unfortunately a huge step backwards for us. And again, by us, I mean the broader international community.” He said Saudi Arabia appreciates “the role that the US administration played, the role of Qatar, Egypt and Turkiye in bringing the Gaza crisis to an end,” and that “we are supportive of the administration’s Gaza plan.”
“But ultimately, long term, we really do believe that there’s no alternative to a two-state solution,” he said. “And we’ll continue to work with the United States. We’ll continue to work with our partners in the region in advocating and promoting that vision.”
He added: “Both the Palestinians and the Israelis have to make difficult decisions going forward. And we’ll continue to work with the US, we’re going to continue to work with our Palestinian partners, with our neighbors in the region to try to push this forward because we really just don’t see any alternative.”
