The 36-year-old crown prince ended up shouting at Mr. Sullivan after he raised the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The prince told Mr. Sullivan he never wanted to discuss the matter again, said people familiar with the exchange. And the US could forget about its request to boost oil production, he told Mr. Sullivan.
The relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia has hit its lowest point in decades, with Mr. Biden saying in 2019 that the kingdom should be treated like a pariah over human-rights issues such as Mr. Khashoggi’s murder.
The political fissures have deepened since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, senior Saudi and U.S. officials said. The White House wanted the Saudis to pump more crude, both to tame oil prices and undercut Moscow’s war finances. The kingdom hasn’t budged, keeping in line with Russian interests.
Prince Mohammed wants foremost to be recognized as the de facto Saudi ruler and future king. The crown prince runs the country’s day-to-day affairs for his ailing father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud. But Mr. Biden hasn’t yet met or spoken directly with the prince. Last summer, the president told Americans to blame low Saudi oil output for rising gas prices.
After the publication of this article online, Adrianne Watson, a White House National Security Council spokeswoman, reiterated President Biden’s stated commitment that the U.S. would support the kingdom’s territorial defense. She cited diplomatic achievements in recent weeks, such as the condemnation by Persian Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She said Mr. Sullivan didn’t discuss oil production with Prince Mohammed at their September meeting and that “there was no shouting."
A Saudi official at the kingdom’s Washington embassy said after publication of this article online that the relationship between the U.S. and the kingdom remains strong. He called the meeting between Mr. Sullivan and Prince Mohammed cordial and respectful.
“Over the course of the last 77 years of Saudi-U.S relations, there have been many disagreements and differing points of view over many issues, but that has never stopped the two countries from finding a way to work together," the official said.
The risk for the U.S. is that Riyadh will align more closely with China and Russia, or at least remain neutral on issues of vital interest to Washington, as it has on Ukraine, Saudi officials said.
The U.S.-Saudi partnership was built on the premise that the American military would defend the kingdom from hostile powers to ensure the uninterrupted flow of oil to world markets. In turn, successive Saudi kings maintained a steady supply of crude at reasonable prices, with only occasional disruptions. But the economic underpinning of the relationship has changed. The Saudis no longer sell much oil to the U.S. and are instead the biggest supplier to China, reorienting Riyadh’s commercial and political interests.
U.S. officials, including White House Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk, have visited the kingdom repeatedly to try to heal the breach, with an eye to addressing Saudi concerns about security threats from Iran and the Houthi rebels Iran backs in Yemen. Yet with Mr. Biden opposed to any broad concessions to the Saudis, the officials acknowledge making only modest progress.
The White House has stopped asking the Saudis to pump more oil. Instead, it asks only that Saudi Arabia not do anything that would hurt the West’s efforts in Ukraine, a senior U.S. official said.
The Saudis cut short a high-level military delegation to Washington last summer and called off a visit last fall by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. A planned visit last month by Secretary of State Antony Blinken was canceled.
Some close Biden aides, including Mr. McGurk, have been pushing for political detente with the Saudis, which they see as essential for the U.S. to advance its Middle East interests on everything from oil prices to establishing normal diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, according to officials in both countries.
Rapprochement won’t be easy. Mr. Biden faces staunch opposition to improving ties with the Saudis from Democratic and Republican lawmakers, especially since Prince Mohammed has shown little willingness to retreat from a lucrative alliance with Moscow to keep a lid on oil-production levels.
White House officials this year worked to set up a call between Mr. Biden, King Salman and Prince Mohammed, said people familiar with the matter. As the date for the Feb. 9 call approached, Saudi officials told the Biden administration that the crown prince wouldn’t take part, these people said.
The snub propelled simmering private frustrations into the open after The Wall Street Journal reported what happened.
Growing apart
The unlikely U.S.-Saudi marriage has endured over the past 75 years in part because of personal ties between the respective leaders of a democracy and a monarchy.
An ailing President Franklin Roosevelt traveled to the Middle East on a U.S. Navy cruiser in 1945 to launch the relationship with Saudi Arabia’s founder, King Abdulaziz ibn Saud. Decades later, former President George W. Bush and the late King Abdullah hosted each other at their respective ranches.
The strategic relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia has never been as difficult as it is now, said Norman Roule, a former senior U.S. intelligence official covering the Middle East and who maintains contact with senior Saudi officials.
Prince Mohammed doesn’t like his treatment by the Biden administration, which released an intelligence report last year about the crown prince’s alleged role in Mr. Khashoggi’s killing and dismemberment inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The Central Intelligence Agency concluded the prince likely ordered the killing. He denied directing the attack on one of his high-profile critics but has said he bears responsibility because it happened on his watch.
Saudi leaders are also upset about the U.S. approach to Yemen. The White House no longer classifies the Houthis as a terrorist organization and announced it was reducing support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen, imposing a freeze on the sale of precision-guided missiles. Saudi Arabia saw an uptick in cross-border drone and missile attacks by the Houthis and was alarmed by the Pentagon removing several antimissile systems from Saudi Arabia in June. The U.S. said the move was for maintenance.
The Saudis were dismayed by the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, as well as the Biden administration’s ongoing efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal. They also have begun to question the U.S. military commitment to the Middle East and bristle at presumptions that the kingdom will fall in lockstep with Washington.
Prince Mohammed’s demand for acknowledgment by Mr. Biden of his claim to inherit the throne has grown more complicated, Saudi officials said. A few months ago, a phone call may have been enough. Now, Saudi officials are skeptical that even a state visit would suffice.
The Saudi embassy in Washington called the idea that Prince Mohammed wanted such acknowledgment “nonsensical."
The prince wants to put Mr. Khashoggi’s murder behind him—he faces civil lawsuits over the killing—and secure legal immunity in the U.S., Saudi officials said. Mr. Biden could facilitate that by directing the State Department to recognize Prince Mohammad as a head of state.
Saudi Arabia wants more support for its intervention in Yemen’s civil war and to bolster its defenses against cross-border attacks from Iran-allied Houthi fighters. Riyadh also wants help with its civilian nuclear capabilities and more investments in its economy by U.S. companies.
Mr. Biden is unable or unlikely to meet most of these demands, given the lack of support for Saudi Arabia in Congress, especially among Democrats. On April 13, 30 Democrats, including the leaders of the House foreign affairs and intelligence committees, called on the administration to take a tougher stance on Saudi Arabia, largely over the Saudi response to the Ukraine war and its refusal to boost oil production.
The U.S.-Saudi relationship has faltered before. The 1973 Arab oil embargo, led by Saudi Arabia in response to U.S. support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War, sparked the worst U.S. recession in 40 years.
Weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks—in which the mastermind and 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens—Riyadh nearly cut ties with the U.S. over what it saw as Washington’s failure to rein in Israel during the Palestinian uprising known as the second intifada. Former President Barack Obama angered the Saudis with his support for the “Arab Spring" uprisings and Washington’s secret nuclear talks with Iran.
President Donald Trump, who stood by Prince Mohammed after the Khashoggi killing, proposed a joint military response to Iran’s attack on Saudi oil sites in 2019. The idea was shelved when Riyadh, fearing an escalating regional war, declined to take part, U.S. and Saudi officials said.
What is different this time is a breakdown at the highest level. When Mr. Biden spoke with King Salman last year, the White House said he viewed the 86-year-old monarch as his counterpart, not Prince Mohammed. The president designated Mr. Austin as the interlocutor for the crown prince, who also holds the title of defense minister.
The Saudis tried to accommodate the Biden administration by ending a three-year rift with Qatar before he took office and releasing several high-profile activists in the initial weeks of his administration. But the Saudis lost patience with what they viewed as too many U.S. demands.
When Mr. McGurk made an unannounced trip in February last year to lobby for the release of Prince Mohammed’s uncle and cousin, who had been detained for allegedly plotting a coup, he was rebuffed, Saudi officials said. Ms. Watson of the NSC denied Mr. McGurk went to Saudi Arabia for this purpose.
In July, Prince Khalid bin Salman, who is Prince Mohammed’s younger brother, met Messrs. Austin and Sullivan in Washington to discuss bolstering Saudi air defenses, U.S. and Saudi officials said.
Prince Khalid, the most senior Saudi official to visit the U.S. during the Biden administration, canceled a dinner for U.S. officials at the ambassador’s Washington residence after being told he wouldn’t get the amount of time with Mr. Blinken he had requested, a Saudi official said.
The next day, the two men talked briefly one-on-one, said the official and a person familiar with the visit, but the Saudis cut the trip short and left empty-handed. Ms. Watson said they “spent the better part of an hour one-on-one."
Favored nation
During meetings last year at the seaside palace, Prince Mohammed and King Salman huddled with advisers about what punitive actions Mr. Biden might be planning and how best to pre-empt them, senior Saudi officials said.
They discussed such options as bowing to White House pressure by releasing more political prisoners. Prince Mohammed instead chose a more aggressive path—threatening to solidify nascent alliances with Russia and China, the officials said.
In September, the Saudis called off Mr. Austin’s visit, citing a scheduling conflict, and welcomed on the same night a senior Russian politician sanctioned by the U.S.
Two weeks later, Prince Mohammed, dressed in shorts, received Mr. Sullivan at the seaside palace and told him the Saudis would stick with a Russia-blessed oil production plan that didn’t significantly raise output.
Since then, Mr. McGurk and Amos Hochstein, the State Department’s energy envoy, have visited Saudi Arabia frequently for meetings with Prince Mohammed, Prince Khalid and their older half brother, energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman.
The White House resumed weapons sales for defensive purposes to Riyadh, agreeing to a $650 million sale of air-to-air missiles in November. That was followed by U.S. approval of a transfer from two other Persian Gulf countries of Patriot interceptors used to shoot down Houthi missiles. Last month, Saudi Arabia and the Houthis agreed to a rare truce in their seven-year-old conflict, following diplomacy by Mr. Biden’s special envoy to Yemen.
Messrs. McGurk and Hochstein led a U.S. delegation to Riyadh days before Russia invaded Ukraine and again three weeks later. As oil surged toward $140 a barrel, Saudi Arabia took no action. The U.S. delegation got a chilly reception. The Saudis seemed to be leaning closer to the Kremlin over the Ukraine invasion, according to a person briefed by the Biden administration.
In March, weeks after rebuffing the White House invitation to speak with Mr. Biden, Prince Mohammed took a call from Russian President Vladimir Putin and affirmed Riyadh’s commitment to maintaining its oil deal with Moscow.
