Donald Trump held a formula of rare brutality about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In an intervention at the Future Investment Initiative in Miami, the US President said that the Saudi leader did not imagine that he would end up « kissing my ass, » an expression that can be literally translated as « kissing my ass. » The sequence is part of a Saudi investment forum held in Florida, where it was expected alongside senior officials linked to the Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund.
The sentence is not a simple language slip. Trump added that MBS thought it was dealing with « another losing US president, » before explaining that « now he must be nice to me. » In other words, he presented the relationship with Riyadh as a personal power relationship, in which the Saudi Crown Prince would be forced to align with him.
An alliance displayed, but told as a submission
What makes the scene even more striking is that it does not occur in a moment of rupture between Washington and Riyadh. On the contrary, the Miami Forum is part of a phase of political and economic tightening between the United States and Saudi Arabia, with a strong focus on investment, major projects and regional balances. Trump therefore chose to verbally humiliate a major partner without questioning the alliance itself.
This is the whole trumpian logic. The covenant remains, but it must be told as proof of its own domination. vulgarity is not an accident. It is used to stage the hierarchy he claims to impose on his allies. With MBS, Trump is not trying to distance himself. He seeks to show that even a central partner in the Gulf must bend to his style and his supposed strength.
A method already known at Trump
The register used is not new. Trump has already used this expression to talk about other countries or foreign partners when he wanted to expose his pressure capacity. What changes here is the target. Mohammed ben Salmane is not a secondary actor. It is the centre of Saudi power, the face of the kingdom’s economic strategy and one of the most influential leaders in the Middle East. Applying this vocabulary to MBS publicly is therefore an additional sign of the brutalization of diplomatic language.
The scene also says something about Trump’s confidence in the strength of his relationship with Riyadh. It seems to consider that this proximity is strong enough to survive a public humiliation. It says a lot about his conception of alliances: they are not partnerships between equals, but relationships he wants to personify, prioritize and dominate.
Political background behind vulgarity
Behind the sentence, there is also a strategic message. The relationship with Saudi Arabia is not just about business. It also focuses on major regional issues, in particular Iran and the Middle East balance. Speaking of MBS, Trump is not only targeting the Saudi prince. He addressed the entire region, saying in substance that the Arab allies needed the United States and that they must accept its hierarchy.
This gives this sequence a wider scope than mere coarseness. It summarizes a way of governing and speaking about the world: flattering, humiliating, demanding loyalty, and then exhibiting loyalty as a personal victory. With MBS, Trump pushes this logic to absolute crudity. And it does so in full light, in a Saudi forum, in front of an audience that perfectly measures the symbolic weight of such a sentence.
