Former Deputy National Security Adviser KT McFarland said Wednesday on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America” that Saudi Arabia is on track to eventually join the Abraham Accords, arguing that it’s “only a matter of time” before the kingdom normalizes diplomatic relations with Israel and joins the regional framework.
“[The Saudis] were really behind the scenes in President [Donald] Trump’s first term of getting other countries to join,” McFarland said. “They were close to joining themselves at the end of President Trump’s first term and then when President [Joe] Biden came in, he reversed relationships with Saudi Arabia, he called [Saudi Crown Prince] Mohammed bin Salman a pariah, et cetera, et cetera.
“At the end, President Biden had to go on bended knee and beg the Saudis to please produce more oil before the election because oil prices went skyrocketing,” she continued. “But now that President Trump is back, the Saudis will eventually join.”
She said the momentum behind the diplomatic opening traces directly back to Trump’s first term when he took a chance on building a personal and strategic relationship with bin Salman.
The former Trump official explained that the president’s first administration “had a choice” when determining its stance toward Saudi Arabia because the kingdom was “going through a generational change of leadership” at the time.
“The old guys we’d always done business with were in their 80s, on their way out,” McFarland said. “They’d helped us, the United States, economically with oil, but they really were terrorist-adjacent, so they weren’t really fully aligned with us.”
“On the other hand, these young guys, who then were in their late 30s, they said, ‘Well, we want to get rid of terrorism. We want to break with Islamic extremism, we want to diversify our economies. We want to open up our societies,'” she said.
“And so, President Trump had a choice. Would he take a bet on the unproven young guys, or would he go with the old guys?”
In the end, Trump opted to go with the “young guy” who “promises a lot,” McFarland said, noting that the young guy is bin Salman, who this week has been seen sitting next to Trump in the Oval Office.
“As a result of President Trump’s favoring him early on, [bin Salman] was able to consolidate power and, sure enough, he has done exactly what he said,” she said. “We now have a very close relationship.”
Regardless of whether the Saudis have officially signed onto the Abraham Accords, McFarland argued that the practical elements of normalization are already in place.
“I don’t even think joining with your name on the dotted line is that important, because all the other aspects of that relationship are there,” she said, pointing to the pledged $1 trillion Saudi investment in the United States, the U.S. advanced aircraft sale to the kingdom, and Saudi Arabia’s central role in negotiating the Gaza peace deal.
McFarland emphasized that current regional conditions, including the ongoing Gaza war, are the primary reason Riyadh has not formally signed on.
“Until the Gaza war is finished and the next phase has been implemented, it probably is better politically, at home, for Mohammed bin Salman to not join,” she said. “But he’s going to get there eventually.”
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