On Wednesday, Biden reportedly also used a fist bump to greet Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
The manner of greeting and body language often indicate how statesmen feel about one another, but the Biden team has said close contacts will be restricted for the US president due to the possibility of contracting coronavirus.
Biden is visiting Saudi Arabia as part of his Middle East tour, where he is scheduled to meet with officials from SIrael, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The most pressing issue for Biden is energy security and specifically persuading US partners like Saudi Arabia to increase oil output.
Citing the need to advance US national security interests, Biden had fended off criticism about traveling to Saudi Arabia on his final stop Friday and meeting with the country’s leadership, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. This is Biden’s first face-to-face meeting with the Saudi leadership since assuming the presidency.
During his campaign for the 2020 presidential election, Biden vowed to make Riyadh and MBS “pay the price” and treat them like “the pariah that they are” over the killing of Saudi-born journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018. US intelligence blamed Riyadh and MBS for the killing.
MBS in his turn said he was responsible for the slaying, “because it happened under my watch,” but denied direct involvement. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir called the killing a “rogue operation” and vowed to bring those responsible to justice. A Saudi court sentenced five officials to death and gave three others decades-long prison sentences in late 2019. However, the five convicts were later pardoned, and in 2020 eight unnamed people said to be connected to the murder were sentenced to between 7 and 20 years in prison.