Young Saudi prince’s under-the-radar US visit belies his big plans and growing power

Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is making his solo Washington debut this week, pitching an economic plan to investors and trying to counter negative views among US lawmakers that his country isn’t stopping terrorist financing.

Just don’t expect to see much of him.

While Prince Mohammed, who is also the Saudi defence minister, has been whisked to meetings across Washington since Monday, all of them have been closed to the press. He broke the Ramadan fast with Secretary of State John Kerry, met intelligence and congressional leaders including House Speaker Paul Ryan and visited Defence Secretary Ash Carter at the Pentagon, all without making any public comments.

Nor did the White House publicise the president’s plans to meet with the increasingly powerful young prince. When asked by reporters, though, spokesman Eric Schultz confirmed Thursday that US President Barack Obama would meet Prince Mohammed in the Oval Office on Friday afternoon. It’s a follow-up to the president’s April summit with Gulf Arab leaders in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, Schultz said.

Most of the agenda will focus on “restoring stability to the regional conflicts that we’ve seen, our cooperation with the Saudis against” Islamic State and the kingdom’s new economic plan, he said.

Details of what’s been discussed so far behind closed doors are sparse, but participants said the kingdom’s economic overhaul, regional rival Iran, the wars in Yemen and Syria and the fight against Islamic State were all on the agenda.