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American presidents have been visiting Saudi Arabia for decades, and the trips have often produced memorable moments \u2014 some dramatic, others downright odd.<\/p>\n
As President Trump returns to Saudi Arabia, here is a look back at four moments from past presidential trips to visit leaders of the oil-rich Gulf state.<\/p>\n
The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia appeared to be wilting before President Joseph R. Biden Jr. visited Jeddah<\/a> in 2022.<\/p>\n Mr. Biden, as a candidate in 2019, had vowed to turn Saudi Arabia into a \u201cpariah\u201d over the killing of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi<\/a>, which the C.I.A. said had been ordered by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman<\/a>.<\/p>\n But as Mr. Biden worked in 2022 to manage oil prices, which spiked after Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the president took a different tack. Arriving at the Royal Palace, Mr. Biden, grinning slightly, gave the crown prince a fist bump as a bank of cameras<\/a> rolled.<\/p>\n The Saudi government quickly posted an image<\/a> of the fist bump on social media. Mr. Biden later told reporters that he had privately confronted Prince Mohammed about the killing, and that the prince \u201cbasically said that he was not personally responsible for it.\u201d<\/p>\n Back in Washington, Mr. Biden became impatient when pressed on the fist bump. \u201cWhy don\u2019t you guys talk about something that matters?\u201d he chided a reporter.<\/p>\n Within months, Mr. Biden acknowledged that the trip had not produced the surge in Saudi oil production that he had sought.<\/p>\n It looked like something from a children\u2019s movie.<\/p>\n During a visit to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, early in his first term, Mr. Trump found himself laying hands<\/a> on a glowing white orb.<\/p>\n Beside him, King Salman of Saudi Arabia and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt also placed their hands on the sphere. An image of the men touching the orb \u2014 with the first lady, Melania Trump, looking on \u2014 circulated widely on social media, with memes multiplying in short order.<\/p>\n One meme likened the image to that of Saruman, the \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d villain, tapping into a seeing stone.<\/p>\n But the orb in Riyadh was not, it turned out, magical.<\/p>\n The sphere was a translucent globe, apparently decorative, at a facility filled with computer terminals and devoted to combating extremist ideology.<\/p>\n President Richard M. Nixon met a warm reception in Jeddah during a five-nation sweep through the Middle East in the spring of 1974.<\/p>\n Nixon arrived hoping to encourage the country to help reduce oil prices, according to passages of his memoirs published by the Richard Nixon Foundation.<\/p>\n But he also came with another goal \u2014 pushing Saudi Arabia to use its considerable regional influence to push for peace in the Middle East.<\/p>\n In remarks at the State Palace, he emphasized to his hosts that he did not come just to win cheaper oil.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can use oil, but we need more, something far more than oil,\u201d the president said. \u201cWe need wisdom.\u201d<\/p>\n Though he did not travel to Saudi soil, President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with the founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz al-Saud, on a U.S. warship in the Great Bitter Lake, part of the Suez Canal in Egypt.<\/p>\n Roosevelt charmed the king, who struggled to walk, by presenting him with the gift of a wheelchair<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n2017: Trump and the Orb<\/h2>\n
1974: Nixon Says, \u2018We Need Wisdom\u2019<\/h2>\n
1945: Roosevelt Gives a Wheelchair<\/h2>\n