A Pattern of Praise: How Trump’s Meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Reflects a Trend of the US Glorifying Autocrats

President Donald Trump meeting with Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman, November 18, 2025. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

On November 18, 2025, President Donald Trump welcomed the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman, to the White House for an eventful visit marked by “lots of pomp and circumstance.” Notably, when speaking to the press, President Trump dismissed a potent question toward Prince Mohammad regarding the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and frequent dissident of the royal family who was assassinated and dismembered in 2018 by Saudi government agents. “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman,” President Trump said about Khashoggi, further explaining, “Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.” Absolving the crown prince of any wrongdoing, he also added that Prince Mohammad “knew nothing about it.” 

However, according to a 2021 U.S. intelligence report, the crown prince ordered the killing of Khashoggi but later denied any involvement. Further criticism of Prince Mohammad and his regime has consisted of the leader’s documented links to “serious human rights violations” and a widespread and brutal crackdown on critics of the Saudi government. Madawai al-Rasheed, a Visiting Professor at the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science, even claimed that Prince Mohammad has effectively transformed Saudi Arabia into a “totalitarian regime in which all of the power of the state is concentrated in one person's hands.” 

As for the meeting itself, the two leaders actualized many previous promises ranging from military items to economic investment. For example, President Trump formalized the sale of F-35 stealth fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, despite some in the Pentagon warning that the technology could be shared with China due to Riyadh’s ties with Beijing. Additionally, Prince Mohammad pledged to increase Saudi investment in the U.S. to a total $1 trillion. President Trump told reporters, “that means investments in plants, in companies, money on Wall Street.” 

However, Prince Mohammad is only one of several controversial world leaders who have visited the White House since President Trump moved back in. About a week before he met with the crown prince, President Trump held a historic meeting with President Ahmad al-Sharaa, marking the first time a Syrian leader had been invited to the White House. That meeting also realized many prior promises made by President Trump, as the U.S Treasury Department extended a suspension of punishing sanctions on the pariah nation. Syria also vowed to join a global coalition of over 85 nations focused on defeating the Islamic State, which still operates in parts of the country. 

President al-Sharaa, who once had a $10 million bounty from the U.S., was not too long ago commanding rebels from an Al Qaeda-affiliate group against the brutal Assad regime in Syria, which al-Sharaa ultimately helped topple in December 2024. Controversially, President al-Sharaa was reported to dispatch suicide bombings and welcome Muslim jihadists from around the world. Despite his past, he assured CBS News that his group “did not take any external actions outside Syrian territory” and did not “target anyone but the Syrian regime.” During the meeting itself, President Trump praised the world leader, lauding that “We want to see Syria become a country that’s very successful, and I think this leader can do it.”

Continuing the trend of meeting and praising controversial leaders, President Trump met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán just days before talking with President al-Sharaa. Prime Minister Orbán, who has held office since 2010, has been criticized for slowly transforming Hungary from a democracy to a dictatorship. Arguably fearing the denial of reelection this spring, Prime Minister Orbán was seeking “luxuriant praise” from President Trump—and received that and more. By striking a deal that would exempt Hungary from U.S. sanctions for around a year and an agreement for the nation to purchase 10 small American nuclear reactors worth somewhere between $10 and $20 billion, the BBC reported that President Trump “clearly wants to help his friend win the election in April.” This notion aligns with President Trump’s numerous remarks praising the Prime Minister as “a great man, a strong man.” In 2019, during his first term, President Trump called Prime Minister Orbán “respected all over Europe” despite being “a little bit controversial.” And in 2024, during a visit to his Mar-a-lago estate, President Trump praised him as “fantastic” and emphasized that “there’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán.”

Earlier in the year, President Trump also drew attention by meeting with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, calling him “one hell of a President.” President Trump additionally thanked the leader for helping facilitate U.S. deportations to the Latin American nation. In March 2025, the U.S. sent more than 200 Venezuelan men to CECOT, El Salvador’s $135 million megaprison. From a New York Times interview with 40 of the men, they described themselves as “being beaten, sexually assaulted by guards and driven to the brink of suicide” inside the facility. From a bigger picture, President Bukele has been accused of expanding his authority into despotism. President Bukele has been reported to consolidate his grip on power by weakening checks and balances, silencing the opposition, and removing term limits for the presidency. All of this, according to some, has him adopting a more “authoritarian identity.” The head of state has even gone so far as to embrace the criticism, describing himself on social media as the “world’s coolest dictator.”

All of these meetings reflect a pattern in which President Trump greets and praises unconventional and widely criticized global figures. This helps boost their legitimacy at home, as foreign populations see their leaders interact with President Trump and achieve tangible progress with one of the world’s foremost superpowers. But glorifying and cooperating with some of these leaders and overlooking their domestic power grabs can embolden authoritarianism globally. According to a report by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, authoritarians can cherry-pick outcomes of “everyday [or friendly] engagement” with more democratic nations to bolster their own security or legitimacy concerns, foregoing any effort to actually reform their governments. Similarly, Western democracies, such as the U.S., are often willing to sacrifice democratization efforts for political outcomes, meaning things like anticorruption or electoral stability are secondary goals or even ignored entirely. 

Likewise, the gutting of foreign aid during President Trump’s first months back in office has led many groups, including the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), to conclude that overall U.S. democratic backsliding “encourages autocrats globally.” In its annual Global State of Democracy report, IDEA said that many U.S. political institutions have lost their “symbolic sheen” of legitimacy, which benefits “populist strongman leaders [more] than pro-democracy hopefuls” around the world. 

With President Trump frequently meeting and commending these “populist strongman leaders,” such as Prince Mohammad or President Bukele, there are no signs of this pattern of legitimizing authoritarianism reversing. Nevertheless, President Trump often flexes the value of friendliness with authoritarian figures. In an October 2024 interview, he said of notorious autocrats Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un, “If I’m friendly with people … if I can have a relationship with people, that’s a good thing.” Regardless of the impact of these meetings, Americans and the world are eagerly awaiting who will be the next world leader to pay a visit to Trump’s White House.