Biden administration at crossroads over defense pact with Saud

There’s no single story dominating coverage of Saudi in the foreign press this morning, but the Voice of America is out with a piece on what’s at stake for a defense pact between Saudi and the US. The Biden administration is mulling whether to proceed with an agreement that doesn’t include Saudi normalization with Israel, or hold its ground on the normalization, pundits say.

Background: Reuters and Bloomberg reported earlier this month that an agreement is in the works despite White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan saying that Washington agreeing to the bilateral pact is contingent on normalization.

Elsewhere: Local professionals aren’t thrilled with foreign consultants — or their price tags. That’s the takeaway from a piece in the Financial Times on the ubiquity of international consultancy firms in the Kingdom, which some have argued has become an unnecessary expense with little return.

In context: Saudi’s consultancy market grew to a record USD 3 bn in 2023, the salmon-colored paper writes, citing data by Source Global Research. That’s about the same size as the Swiss market for the same services.