It also happened a month after reports emerged that President Joe Biden is considering a trip to Riyadh to meet with the nation's de facto leader, who the president previously condemned for ordering the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Biden greenlit the public release of a US intelligence report last year that claimed MBS orchestrated and approved the plan for Khashoggi's 2018 killing.
And on the presidential campaign trail, Biden promised to 'make them pay the price' over the kingdom's human rights abuses.
It's a sharp departure from the Trump administration's considerably warmer relations with the Saudis, including a personal friendship between Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner and the Crown Prince that led to accusations of the Republican administration overlooking the regime's wrongdoings.
But repairing the US-Saudi relationship took on fresh urgency after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, throwing the global energy supply chain into chaos.
Comments