WASHINGTON — President Trump gave a warm welcome to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday and credited U.S. defense sales to the Saudis with boosting American jobs, even as Riyadh’s involvement in Yemen’s civil war faced criticism.

In the Oval Office, Trump and the crown prince praised the strength of U.S.-Saudi ties, which had grown strained under the Obama administration in part over differing views toward Riyadh’s regional rival, Iran.

Not so with Trump, who has taken a hardline view against Iran similar to that of the Saudi crown prince who has compared Iran’s supreme leader to Adolf Hitler.

The talks were part of the first visit by the prince to the United States since he became the heir apparent last year to King Salman.

Trump’s red-carpet treatment highlighted his administration’s strong backing of the crown prince, who carried out an ‘anti-corruption’ purge that consolidated his power and whose aggressive foreign policy has caused unease among some Western allies.

At the same time, the kingdom has seen a cautious new climate of social freedoms with the rise of the 32-year-old crown prince after decades of elderly rulers.

Trump praises U.S. military sales to Saudi as he welcomes crown prince

Trump and Prince Mohammed discussed an agreement last year for $200 billion worth of Saudi investments with the United States, including large purchases of U.S. military equipment. Trump said the military sales contributed to the creation of 40,000 American jobs.

Trump acting like a salesman, held up charts to show the depth of Saudi purchases of U.S. military hardware, ranging from ships to missile defense to planes and fighting vehicles.

“Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy nation, and they’re going to give the United States some of that wealth, hopefully, in the form of jobs, in the form of the purchase of the finest military equipment anywhere in the world,” he told reporters.

The crown prince, in a rare foray into speaking English, replied to Trump that the Saudi pledge for $200 billion in investments would end up at $400 billion when fully implemented. He said a 10-year window for implementing the deal was under way.

The crown prince, who is also the defense minister, is on a public relations blitz while traveling in the United States, with stops in New York, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Houston to cultivate investments.

The Senate kills a resolution seeking an end to U.S. involvement in Yemen

As they talked, U.S. senators debated a resolution seeking an end to U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s campaign in Yemen’s civil war, in which about 10,000 people have been killed. Some members of Congress have been critical of the Saudi involvement, particularly over the humanitarian situation and civilian casualties.

Later on Tuesday the Senate killed the resolution 55-44, which sought for the first time to take advantage of a provision in the 1973 War Powers Act that allows any senator to introduce a resolution on whether to withdraw U.S. armed forces from a conflict not authorized by Congress.

The vote was largely along party lines, although a handful of Democrats voted with the majority Republicans to kill the measure, and a handful of Republicans supported the failed effort to let it move ahead.

During Senate debate before the vote, some backers called the three-year-long conflict in Yemen a “humanitarian catastrophe,” which they blamed on the Saudis.

A Saudi-led coalition, with logistical and intelligence support from Washington, is fighting to counter the influence of Iran, an ally of the Houthi militia, which denies any help from Tehran and says it is fighting a revolution against corrupt politicians and Gulf powers in thrall to the West.

A senior Trump administration official said the two leaders talked about the humanitarian situation in Yemen and that civilian casualties “did not come up in a major way,” given that Washington had been working with the Saudis to minimize them.

They also discussed nuclear cooperation. Riyadh has been stepping up plans to develop a civilian nuclear energy capability as part of a plan to reduce its dependence on oil.

Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the chamber’s Foreign Relations Committee, said senators questioned the crown prince closely about Yemen during a meeting with him on Tuesday.

The Saudi embassy said the prince discussed with members “countering the threat posed by Iran and the Iran-backed Houthi militias” as well as Saudi “efforts to address and alleviate the humanitarian situation in Yemen.”

People carry water tanks as they walk at the site of damage after a Saudi-led air strike, north of Yemen’s capital Sanaa, March 8 – Photos by Reuters

Iran Nuclear Deal is high on the Saudi agenda

Also, high on the Saudi agenda in the White House talks was confronting Iran, a country Trump has repeatedly criticized for its expansionist policies in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia called the Iran nuclear deal a “flawed agreement,” and Trump has made clear he plans to exit the agreement unless changes are made to it.

“But Iran has not been treating that part of the world or the world itself appropriately,” he said. “The deal is coming up in one month and we’ll see what happens.”

The prince was also due to have dinner with Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, along with Jason Greenblatt, the two point men in the Trump administration overseeing Middle East peace efforts.

Crown Prince Mohammed and Kushner have forged a close relationship, which has at times come under criticism in Washington for circumventing normal diplomatic channels.

Mattis tells Saudi crown prince: Urgent need to end Yemen’s war

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday there was an urgent need to find a political solution to Yemen’s war, as he voiced hope for a U.N. special envoy’s peace efforts and firmly backed Riyadh.

A Saudi-led coalition intervened in neighboring Yemen in 2015 against Houthis Yemeni group, who had ousted the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The civil war has killed an estimated 10,000 people, displaced millions.

“We must also reinvigorate urgent efforts to seek a peaceful resolution to the civil war in Yemen and we support you in this regard,” Mattis said.

Asked by reporters at the start of his talks whether he would raise the issue of civilian casualties in Yemen, Mattis said: “We are going to end this war, that is the bottom line. And we are going to end it on positive terms for the people of Yemen but also security for the nations in the peninsula.”

Earlier this year, the United Nations chief appointed former British diplomat Martin Griffiths as his new envoy charged with trying to broker peace in Yemen.

The war in Yemen has displaced more than 2 million people and driven the country – already the poorest on the Arabian Peninsula – to the verge of widespread famine. Nearly 1 million people have been infected with cholera.