Mohammed bin Salman called Donald Trump twice on Thursday, 10 September 2026. Houthi forces were closing in on the Bab al-Mandab Strait, Saudi oil exports were under threat from a second direction, and the Saudi crown prince wanted American strikes. Trump said no. That single refusal has reopened a question that has hovered over the relationship for the better part of a decade, which is whether all the money, flattery and access Riyadh has directed at Trump and his family actually purchases anything when it matters most.
What happened, in sequence
The current Saudi-Houthi confrontation reignited in July, when Riyadh blocked an Iranian aircraft carrying senior Houthi officials from landing in Sanaa. MBS asked Trump for political backing to strike Sanaa airport at the time, while making clear Saudi Arabia did not need American military assistance to do it. Trump gave that backing. The Houthis retaliated by attacking Saudi tankers in the Red Sea and later widened their campaign to Saudi energy infrastructure, including the east-west crude pipeline the kingdom relies on to move oil toward Red Sea export terminals.
By September the picture had worsened considerably. Houthi forces seized the port city of Mokha and then a strategically placed island at the mouth of the strait, putting one of the world’s most important shipping arteries within reach. With Iran already disrupting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the prospect of Houthi leverage over Bab al-Mandab meant pressure on Saudi energy exports from both ends of the region’s maritime routes. That is the moment MBS picked up the phone, twice. According to two American officials cited by Axios, Trump declined direct strikes, and officials stressed the administration has no plans to intervene militarily against the Houthis for now.
Trump offered his own explanation publicly that Saturday, saying the Houthis had contacted the United States and indicated they did not want a fight with Washington, and that most shipping was being allowed through.
The case that the courtship has backfired
The argument that Riyadh’s investment in Trump-world has failed to deliver rests on a fairly long ledger. The relationship between Jared Kushner and MBS dates to Trump’s first term, when Kushner oversaw Middle East policy. Six months after Trump left office in 2021, the Saudi Public Investment Fund, chaired by MBS, put $2 billion into Kushner’s newly formed private equity firm Affinity Partners, a decision the fund’s own screening committee had recommended against, citing the inexperience of the management and excessive fees. MBS overruled it. Congressional investigators have documented tens of millions in annual management fees flowing to the firm, and a House Oversight letter raised the question directly of whether personal financial interests had improperly shaped American foreign policy.
The pattern continued into Trump’s second term. Affinity Partners was brought into the PIF-led acquisition of Electronic Arts, a deal reported to require approval from a committee composed largely of Trump appointees, despite the firm having no video games experience and roughly 30 staff. In January 2026, less than two months after hosting MBS at the White House, Trump announced billions in Trump Organization real estate projects in Saudi Arabia. Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s firm received a separate $1 billion PIF investment.
Set against all of that, the September refusal looks stark. Former diplomats and analysts quoted in recent coverage describe Saudi Arabia as frustrated and disappointed by Trump’s reluctance to confront the Houthis, with some characterising the kingdom’s position as its worst case scenario, facing threats to its oil exports from multiple directions with dwindling options. The uncomfortable implication is that the relationship was always transactional in one direction, and that proximity to Trump buys attention and commercial opportunity rather than military commitment.
The case that it has not
There is a serious counter argument, and it deserves stating properly rather than as a footnote.
First, Trump did not abandon Riyadh. The administration is providing Saudi Arabia with American intelligence on the Houthis along with targeting data, and roughly 200 US military personnel are already in the kingdom providing non-kinetic support. Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, travelled to Saudi Arabia on the same Thursday for urgent coordination meetings. What was refused was direct American strikes, not support as such, and that is a meaningful distinction.
Second, the refusal is explicable on grounds that have nothing to do with the strength of the personal relationship. An administration already managing confrontation with Iran has obvious reasons to avoid opening a second front in Yemen, and Trump’s own account suggests he sees an implicit understanding with the Houthis that direct American involvement would collapse. Declining a request because the strategic calculus points the other way is not the same as declining because the relationship has soured.
Third, it is worth remembering that in July, when MBS asked for political backing rather than military intervention, he got it. The kingdom has received a great deal from this White House. What it has not received is the one thing American presidents across both parties have generally been reluctant to give any ally, which is unconditional commitment of US forces on request.
What the episode actually reveals
The most defensible reading sits between the two positions. The courtship has not failed in any general sense, since the commercial and diplomatic returns to Riyadh have been substantial and well documented. What September exposed is the limit of what that access converts into. Money and personal relationships buy a hearing, favourable treatment on deals and a sympathetic ear. They do not buy control over a president’s assessment of where American military risk is worth taking, particularly when that president has built a political identity partly around not starting new wars in the Middle East.
For MBS, that is an expensive lesson arriving at the worst possible moment, with Houthi forces at a chokepoint that matters enormously to the Saudi economy. Whether Trump’s position holds is a separate question. Officials have been careful to frame the refusal as applying for now, and a sufficiently damaging strike on Saudi infrastructure or on American interests could change the calculation quickly.
Key takeaways
Trump declined MBS’s request for direct American strikes on the Houthis in September 2026, after Houthi forces seized Mokha and an island near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, threatening Saudi oil exports. The refusal has prompted questions about the returns on Riyadh’s long cultivation of Trump and Jared Kushner, which includes a $2 billion PIF investment in Kushner’s Affinity Partners approved over the fund’s own screening committee’s objections. However, Washington is still providing intelligence, targeting data and around 200 non-kinetic support personnel, and the refusal is plausibly driven by reluctance to open a second front against Iran rather than by any cooling of the relationship.
