The American president has been visiting Saudi Arabia for decades, and travel has often produced memorable moments.
When President Trump returns to Saudi Arabia, here we look back at four moments from past presidential trips to visit the oil-rich Gulf state leaders.
2022: The rise of Biden's fist
The US-Saudi Arabia relations appeared to have withered before President Joseph R. Biden Jr. visited Jeddah in 2022.
As a 2019 candidate, Biden has vowed to turn Saudi Arabia into a “paria” over the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
But when Biden worked in 2022 to manage oil prices that had surged after the full-scale invasion of Russia's Ukraine, the president took another tack. Upon arriving at the royal palace, Biden laughed slightly, giving the Crown Prince a ridge of his fist as the camera rolled.
The Saudi Arabian government quickly posted an image of a fist bump on social media. Biden later told reporters that he faced Prince Mohammed for the murder, and that the prince “basically said he was not personally responsible for it.”
Back in Washington, Biden pressed the bulging fist and panicked. “Why don't you guys talk about things that matter?” he chided the reporter.
Within months, Biden admitted that the trip had not resulted in the surge in Saudi oil production that he had been sought.
2017: Playing cards and orbs
It looked like something from a children's movie.
During his visit to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, early in his first term, Trump found himself resting his hands on a shining white orb.
Beside him, King Salman of Saudi Arabia and President Abdel Fatta el-Sisi of Egypt also placed his hands in the territory. Images of men touching orbs – first lady, melania cards, watching – circulated widely on social media, memes multiplied in short order.
One meme likened the image to the image of Salman, the villain of the “lord of the ring” and slammed the stones he saw.
But the orbs in Riyadh were not, but they became magical.
The sphere was a clearly decorative translucent Earth, filled with computer terminals, a facility dedicated to fighting extremist ideology.
1974: Nixon says, “We need wisdom.”
President Richard M. Nixon met a warm reception in Jeddah in the spring of 1974, in a sweeping Middle East of five countries.
According to a text in his memoir published by the Richard Nixon Foundation, Nixon arrived in hoping to encourage them to help cut oil prices.
But he brought another goal. It urged Saudi Arabia to use considerable regional influence to push for peace in the Middle East.
In his remarks at the State Palace, he emphasized to the host that he didn't come just to acquire cheaper oils.
“We can use oil, but we need more and more than oil,” the president said. “We need wisdom.”
[1945:Rooseveltgivesawheelchair[1945年：ルーズベルトは車椅子を与えます
Although he did not travel to Saudi soil, President Franklin D. Roosevelt met King Abdulziz al-Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia, on a US warship on Lake Great Bitter, part of Egypt's Suez Canal.
Roosevelt fascinated the king, who had struggled to walk, by presenting him with the gift of a wheelchair.
