RIYADH: As anticipation builds for what is being dubbed a truly historic meeting between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Donald Trump in Washington, a veteran American diplomat with decades of experience across the Middle East says opportunities for cooperation and expansion of the Saudi-US partnership are increasing.

“The nature of our relationship can be as diverse as the Saudi economy is becoming,” Michael Ratney, who served as the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia from April 2023 to January 2025, said during an appearance on “Frankly Speaking,” the weekly Arab News current affairs show.

According to Ratney, Saudi-US relations can no longer be reduced to a simple oil-for-defense formula; instead, the partnership reflects new economic realities and expanding areas of cooperation.

“I think once upon a time, oil and defense really dominated the relationship. And the big change was really Saudi’s decision to start diversifying its economy,” he said. “And that created huge opportunities for cooperation with the US, particularly with the US companies.”

That shift began in earnest on April 25, 2016, when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced Vision 2030, a national strategy aimed at transforming Saudi Arabia into a more balanced, competitive and resilient economy.

Within that vision, Ratney said, sectors widely seen as “US brands,” including artificial intelligence, renewable energy, and arts and culture, are growing rapidly.

“Look at where Saudi’s ambitions are, advanced technology, for example, and emerging tech and artificial intelligence,” he told Katie Jensen, the host of “Frankly Speaking.”

“It’s kind of a US brand, right? It’s where US industry has huge advantages and where there’s opportunities for partnership with Saudi Arabia that wants to invest and develop very, very quickly.” 

Ratney said renewable energy is another example of overlap.

“People don’t realize Saudi Arabia, one of the largest oil producers in the world, is also one of the largest investors in renewable energy — wind, solar, and I think eventually nuclear, again areas where the United States has technological advantage and opportunity for partnership.”

Similarly, arts and culture, though historically a small part of the Saudi economy, now represents another major growth area, according to him.

“This has never been a huge sector of the Saudi economy, but as the cultural sector opens up, as Saudi has been trying to develop its own film industry,” he said.

In the wide-ranging interview, Ratney outlined his expectations for the Saudi crown prince’s Washington visit; addressed lingering questions about the value of US alliances, particularly after the Israeli and Iranian strikes on Qatar and the regional fallout from the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack and Israel’s onslaught on Gaza; and dismissed claims that cultural and entertainment events being staged in Saudi Arabia are merely a publicity stunt.

Drawing on years of visits to the Kingdom and first-hand experience observing its social transformation, Ratney recently wrote a Wall Street Journal column defending Saudi Arabia’s right to host major entertainment events.

The opinion piece, published on Oct. 23 and titled “Saudis Just Want to Have Fun,” dismissed claims that concerts and comedy festivals are staged merely for international public relations.

In September and October, Riyadh hosted a comedy festival at Boulevard City that drew large, diverse crowds and featured international comedians including Jimmy Carr, Jack Whitehall, Kevin Hart, Russell Peters and Omid Djalili. Saudi Arabia has also been hosting frequent live music concerts featuring both global and regional artists.

Explaining his position, Ratney said: “Having seen, as I said in that article, a front-row seat for some of these events … whether it’s concerts or sporting events, things that 10 or 15 years ago were just inconceivable in Saudi Arabia — and when you’re sitting in the audience, what do you see?

“You’re surrounded by Saudis who are just overjoyed with the experience. And for some reason, people overseas, particularly in the West, I know the United States in particular, looked at them and assumed that the Saudis must be doing this in order to satisfy foreign public opinion.”

Ratney added that when he sat among Saudi audiences, he noticed that “the last thing I think they cared about was foreign public opinion. They cared about having fun, living a normal life.”

He called it “somewhat patronizing” that some foreign critics see these events only through the lens of PR. “If it was a public relations campaign, it didn’t really work because you still had the same critics, right?”

Ratney applauded the Kingdom for “bringing fun and entertainment and recreation to a country that never really had it,” adding that Gulf states “do things in a big way. They get the biggest names and the biggest events, and, you know, more power to them. It’s a fun event.”

Returning to the Saudi crown prince’s upcoming Washington visit, Ratney said he expects it to be productive, noting that several discussions underway began during President Joe Biden’s administration.

“I think some of the things that are being discussed and under negotiation now, as I understand it, are things that began in the Biden administration, some of which were actually a part of the broader discussion about normalization,” he said.

He outlined three likely focus areas, the first of which is a defense agreement. “I don’t think we’re in a place where we could see a defense treaty that would require ratification by the US Senate. But I think some sort of a defense agreement that helps cement and bolster US-Saudi military cooperation is probably in the cards.”

Second is emerging technology, particularly AI. “The Saudis obviously have huge ambitions in the area of artificial intelligence,” he said. “What they want are predictable and reliable supplies of US tech, particularly the most advanced chips to essentially fuel their AI ambitions. And I think they’d like to see some agreement on that.”

He said the third area is, indeed, energy. “The Saudis are big investors in renewable energy. I think they see a piece of that as nuclear. And I believe they’re going to want some sort of an agreement on civil nuclear cooperation between the US and Saudi Arabia.”

However, the question of normalization with Israel, once seen as a cornerstone of a broader Saudi-US deal, is “off the table for now,” according to Ratney, who previously served as the charge d'affaires of the US Embassy in Israel.

“For the moment, the Saudis have made very clear that they couldn’t move ahead with the normalization deal with Israel, as long as the Israeli Defense Forces are in Gaza, and as long as the Israeli government hasn’t committed to a pathway for statehood for the Palestinians,” Ratney said.

The war in Gaza has killed at least 69,000 Palestinians, according to the local health authority, and devastated the enclave, wiping out entire cities and towns. Despite a tenuous US-brokered ceasefire since Oct. 10, sporadic deadly Israeli strikes continue and aid flows remain inadequate.

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly said it will not normalize relations with Israel without an established Palestinian state and an end to the Gaza war.

Ratney explained that before Oct. 7, 2023, Riyadh and Washington had “embarked on these discussions about normalization between Saudi and Israel, and that would have brought with it a defense treaty between Saudi Arabia and the United States and a number of other elements.”

But the Hamas attack and the subsequent war in Gaza were a “hinge point in the region,” he said. Although negotiations never stopped, he noted that Saudi Arabia’s ability to move forward with normalization shifted.

“Those negotiations were well in train,” he said. “October 7 really changed a lot in the region, changed the atmosphere in the region and changed the ability of a country like Saudi Arabia to move ahead with a relationship with Israel.

“The negotiations in some ways never stopped, but the Saudi ability to move ahead with it was pretty clearly in a different place. Now we’re back in a new administration.

“I don’t doubt that President Trump would like to continue where that negotiation left off and eventually see a normalization deal … between Israel and Saudi Arabia. But I think we’re essentially in the same place with respect to Gaza. Things are still pretty tense, although we have a ceasefire. And I think it’s going to be some time before we get back to that particular negotiation.”

Regional tensions deepened in September when Israel carried out an airstrike in Qatar’s capital, Doha, targeting senior Hamas leaders — its first operation in a Gulf state. The strike unsettled Gulf partners and complicated diplomatic efforts.

President Trump issued an executive order after the strike on Qatar, which hosts the US Central Command’s Al-Udeid Air Base. And although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized, critics argue the order is not enough to reassure Gulf partners, who now seek a permanent, legally binding US security guarantee.

Ratney said that desire for predictability is longstanding among Gulf partners. “The Israeli strike on Doha kind of cemented that view,” he said.

“The thing that they want, I think the Qataris want, the Emiratis, the Saudis, others want, is predictability in their relationship with the United States, their security in many cases.

“They see great value in a defense partnership with the United States. They understand the threats that they face in the region from Iran, terrorism and so forth,” he added. “So, I think what they need is predictability. And I think that Israeli strike on Doha really cemented that view.”

He agreed that the executive order “doesn’t have the legal import of a treaty and theoretically could die with this administration,” adding that “all of our Gulf partners, the Saudis included, want something that will transcend an individual administration.”

The Israeli strike came just weeks after Iran also struck Qatari territory. On June 23, Iran launched a missile strike purportedly on Al-Udeid in retaliation for US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities the previous day.

Asked whether allowing a major US partner to be hit twice in one summer undermined Washington’s credibility, Ratney suggested that it did not make Gulf states rethink the strategic value of their ties with the US, but it did reinforce Gulf demands for clarity.

“I don’t think it undermines the fundamental nature of having a US defense partnership,” he said. “But what it did do is make clear to all of our Gulf partners that they want certitude, they want clarity. They want to know what expectations they should have with respect to the United States.”

“And that’s why the Qataris wanted some sort of (assurance), even an executive order. I think the Saudis would like as strong an agreement as they could get. It just reminded them that when things go bad, when something really unusual or shocking happens, they want to know where the United States stands.”

Asked why President Joe Biden, despite being warned about potential Israeli war crimes, stopped short of applying political pressure on Israel, Ratney said: “President Biden had very strong views about the need for the US to stand by its Israeli partner, and that’s what he did.

“At the same time, he had strong views about the need to end the conflict and release the hostages and reach a ceasefire in Gaza. I don’t doubt that he did the best he could to try to balance those two objectives, ending the war and getting the hostages out, standing by our partner, but also hopefully finding some path out of that conflict, so that it doesn’t resume and there’s some sort of a political settlement ultimately.”

Ratney, who served under President Biden, gives credit to President Trump for pressing Netanyahu to accept the October 10 ceasefire in Gaza.

“President Trump expressed frustration with the war continuing for many, many months, although he never stopped his support for Israel. He made clear that he was frustrated with the fact that the war had ground on for so long,” he said.

“And he was finally willing and able to put pressure on the Israeli prime minister in kind of a remarkable way and got to the point where the Israeli prime minister accepted a ceasefire. And that ceasefire eventually got the hostages out.”

Under the first phase of the ceasefire deal, Hamas freed all 20 remaining living Israeli hostages and 25 out of 28 deceased ones. In exchange, Israel freed 250 Palestinian prisoners and 1,718 detainees from Gaza.

Ratney stressed that during the ceasefire, two priorities are critical: reconstruction and security. “We’re still just at the phase of providing humanitarian aid and encouraging others to do so,” he said, noting that reconstruction “requires obviously tens and tens of billions of dollars of aid and requires frankly a more stable security environment.”

He added: “The other piece is related to that, and that’s the call for an international stabilization force.

“Some kind of a security presence that’s going to ensure that Hamas doesn’t remain a threat either to the Gazan people or to Israel, and that whatever happens there, humanitarian aid, distribution, reconstruction assistance can proceed in a secure environment.

“What those two things have in common is they both need international support. And I know the administration has talked about Arab or Muslim states contributing to a stabilization force. I know they’ve spoken about Gulf states, particularly wealthy Gulf states, contributing to reconstruction.”

Ratney believes “all of that is theoretically possible, but far more difficult than I think a lot of people realize.”

“Reconstruction assistance, sure, but I don’t think wealthy Gulf states want to be saddled entirely with the bill,” he said.

“I do think they would participate in some sort of a coherent international effort geared toward rehabilitating Gaza. But what they don’t want to do is look at the destruction that’s been wrought and say it’s up to them to now pay for it.”

As for guarantees that Israel will not continue military action in Gaza, particularly if reconstruction efforts take place, Ratney called it “a big piece” of the proposed plan.

“Nobody wants to pay to rebuild buildings that only get destroyed once again if conflict breaks out again,” he said. “That’s why the stabilization force is so important so that it’s not simply warring parties that have a monopoly on violence inside of Gaza right now.”

Moving on to Syria, Ratney said interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, who took office after his group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham led a rebel offensive in December that ended longtime dictator Bashar Assad’s rule, is saying and doing all the right things.

Al-Sharaa visited the White House earlier this week, the first Syrian head of state to do so since 1946. His trip came as President Donald Trump and Congress considered permanently lifting sanctions on Syria.

“From my perspective, he seems to be doing the right things. He took power in an extraordinarily chaotic situation,” Ratney said.

“I don’t doubt that if you’re a Druze Syrian or Christian Syrian or Alawite Syrian, you have grave trepidation about this, given some of the things that he said and some of the people in his circle. But, for the moment, he seems to be taking the responsibility seriously.”

“Honestly, better that we engage him and work with him rather than try to ostracize him further.

“So, lifting sanctions, is absolutely the right thing to do. Engaging him internationally and giving him that kind of support is the right thing to do. But it’s fair to say that a lot of members of his own country’s population are still anxious about the direction they’re going to go.”

Turning to Syria’s neighbor Lebanon, Ratney said the crisis-stricken country also needs more engagement.

“It’s certainly no surprise that someone would look at the country and observe weak central institutions dominated now for decades by Hezbollah,” he said. “Now is an opportunity perhaps to strengthen those institutions.”

Israel’s major escalation in Lebanon last September and October significantly weakened the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, decapitating its leadership, killing nearly 5,000 fighters, and dismantling much of its military infrastructure in southern Lebanon.

“Hezbollah is at a historic weak point both militarily and politically,” Ratney said. “So rather than continue to try to ostracize them and take steps to weaken them further, maybe better to try to look at those central institutions, including the presidency under President Joseph Aoun, the Lebanese armed forces, which the Lebanese across the sectarian divide have looked at as credible national institutions.

“How can we strengthen those? And, at the same time, give those institutions the power to assert control over the entirety of the territory, not just the capital, including areas eventually where Hezbollah has long dominated. The only way you do that is with support and engagement, not by ostracizing further.”