Saudi Arabia’s crown prince received an effusive welcome at the White House Tuesday from US President Donald Trump, who hailed a “great friendship” with the kingdom — but made no public mention of the sticking points in the burgeoning alliance. In front of the cameras, it was all back-slapping, handshakes, smiles and warm words between Trump and the heir to the Saudi throne, Mohammed bin Salman, who was seeking to burnish his leadership credentials. “It is an honor to have the crown prince of Saudi Arabia with us,” Trump said as the pair prepared to have lunch in the Cabinet Room. “The relationship is probably the strongest it’s ever been — we understand each other.” Prince Mohammed, who is 32 years old, was making his first visit to the White House since he cemented his role as the kingdom’s de facto political leader and embarked on economic and social reforms long sought by the west. Trump, touching on the sensitive shaking out happening inside the kingdom, said “some tremendous things have happened since your last visit to the White House.” “You were the crown prince, and now you are beyond the crown prince,” he said, before adding that he misses Mohammed’s father, King Salman, and hopes to see him soon. Prince Mohammed’s reformist message and the promise of Saudi investment in the United States has endeared him to the neophyte US president — 39 years his elder — and America’s own political princeling Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. Trump and MBS — as he is known in Washington’s corridors of power — have seen eye-to-eye on concerns about Iran’s military activism, Middle East peace, relaxing Saudi Arabia’s deeply conservative laws and over their love for big ticket mega-investments. “Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy nation and they are going to give the United States some of that wealth hopefully, in the form of jobs, in the form of the purchase of the finest military equipment anywhere in the world,” Trump said. Ripples in the pond But an all-out PR campaign designed to burnish the crown prince’s image, and declarations that “relations have never been better,” mask several problems that could spoil the honeymoon. As Prince Mohammed arrived in Washington, word trickled out that Saudi Aramco — the kingdom’s energy behemoth — was cooling on the idea of a stock listing in New York, something Trump has publicly lobbied for. Published in Daily Times, March 21st 2018.