President Donald Trump on Tuesday praised his relationship with Mohammed bin Salman as he met the Saudi crown prince at the White House, pointing to growing arms sales to the kingdom even as he privately pushed Riyadh to resolve the protracted dispute with US ally Qatar. Mr Trump has formed one of the closest alliances of his presidency with Saudi Arabia over joint hostility towards Iran, but concerns over Riyadh’s hardline policy towards Qatar and its role in the conflict in Yemen have increasingly overshadowed the relationship. “The president believes that Gulf unity is critical in the region,” said a senior administration official ahead of the meeting. The official said that while Mr Trump was initially willing to let Gulf allies deal with the dispute, he had become “much more concerned” about the detrimental impact of the dispute to US interests in the region.
The Qatar schism would be “a key point of discussion” at Tuesday’s working lunch between the two men, the official said, adding that Mr Trump’s goal would be to heal the rift and “set up mechanisms to ensure future disputes do not become as costly”. One such mechanism could see the US act as tentative guarantor to any final agreement between the parties, according to officials briefed on the matter, but such discussions are at too early a stage for serious development. But US officials said the president was nevertheless impatient for Gulf allies to solve the longstanding dispute ahead of a tentative summit planned for May in the US that could involve all six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council as well as Egypt and Jordan. The continued pressure from the Trump administration to resolve the rift comes despite the president firing Rex Tillerson, his secretary of state who was seen as sympathetic to the Qataris, who host a large US military base.