Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s meeting with US President Donald Trump comes during a period of relatively strong and stable ties between Saudi Arabia and the United States. How much he can leverage those ties will be on full display.
"The decision is going to come down to whether it's Congress' responsibility to tax people and to therefore regulate tariffs, or whether the president really does have carte blanche to do these things" under the IEEPA, Cécile Shea says.
"We'll see how the working levels are able to negotiate on some of these really sticky points like finalizing energy purchases, like finalizing that TikTok transfer," Craig Kafura says.
"There are some encouraging signs if you’re sitting in China and you’ve been arguing for a more diplomacy-heavy approach toward the United States," Craig Kafura says.
A short-term deal on soybeans, tariffs, and rare earths may ease tensions between the two economies, but competition over technology and supply chains runs far deeper.
From tariffs to talks of annexation, Trump’s approach to Canada is rooted in his transactional mindset and nostalgia for an era of economic nationalism and territorial expansion.
As a Trump-Putin meeting is scrapped and NATO scrambles to steady transatlantic ties, the limits of personal diplomacy and the stakes for Ukraine are coming into sharper focus.
