When Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) signed a deal this week to merge with North America's top body in charge of professional golf, it signaled for some the completion of a U.S.-aided rehabilitation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, five years after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi that U.S. spy agencies believe he authorized.
The deal - a three-way merger of U.S.-based PGA Tour, DP World Tour and the rival PIF-backed LIV circuit - was announced just as Washington's top diplomat Antony Blinken landed in the kingdom.
But some rights advocates argue the golf deal shows the administration has chosen geopolitics over human rights. A senior Biden administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said U.S. efforts on domestic Saudi human rights issues were better tackled in private conversations with Saudi officials, declining to talk about specific cases.
New York-based Human Rights Watch says scores of human rights activists and dissidents are in prison or on trial in Saudi Arabia and that the repression "spiked" following Biden's visit last year. Blinken carried with him a list of urgent matters to raise with the Saudis, including resisting overtures from China, which has been trying to make diplomatic inroads in the Middle East, countering Iran's nuclear weapons program, and persuading Riyadh to establish diplomatic ties with Israel.Oil exports were one reason for Biden's meeting MbS last year, which came as the administration worried inflation would dent the Democratic Party's chances in the U.S. midterm elections.
The administration has been pushing Riyadh to lift his travel ban, a source familiar with the situation said.
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