Biden Ends His Trip With Steps to Mend US-Saudi Ties

President Joe Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took a step toward repairing their troubled relationship with a fist bump, but the US leader left the kingdom on Saturday with few major accomplishments and doubts about whether the visit was worth it.

Biden's four-day trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia, his first visit to the Middle East as president, was aimed at rebuilding ties with the Gulf Arab oil giant, demonstrating US commitment to the region and countering the growing influence of Iran, Russia and China. But Biden cast a shadow over the Saudi leg of the trip as he avoided appearing to embrace the crown prince, who is blamed by US intelligence for the brutal 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which Saudi officials deny. Biden said he confronted Prince Mohammed, known as MbS, about the murder. MbS did not buckle, telling Biden that the US had also made mistakes. Although Biden left the Middle East without a promise from Saudi Arabia to increase oil production or public support for US efforts to build a regional security axis that includes Israel, the trip was not a failure. Biden's fist bump with Prince Mohammed outside the royal palace in Jeddah will remain the defining image of the trip, but it had been in the works for months. White House officials were divided on whether to reward MbS with a visit and agonized over how it would look. In the end, they decided that preserving 80 years of strategic ties with Saudi Arabia was in US interests and would help both sides turn over a new leaf. Riyadh took several important steps to pave the way for the visit: Supporting the UN-brokered ceasefire in the Yemeni conflict was a major victory for Biden, who withdrew US support for Saudi-led offensive operations. It also helped accelerate already approved increases in oil production through OPEC+. "The coming together of nine Arab leaders and their support for a ceasefire in Yemen is a clear success. But it came at the price of fist-bumping," said Bruce Riedel, a foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution.