Saudis invest in special relationship to reward new friend Trump

Riyadh spent a reported $65m to welcome Donald Trump to the kingdom, on the first leg of his first foreign trip as president. The largesse was designed to reset relations after eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency, when Washington’s perception of human rights sometimes outweighed realpolitik and big deals, and foreign policy came to hinge on the Iran nuclear deal so loathed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain (if less so by other Gulf Co-operation Council allies).