US President Donald Trump's decision to make Saudi Arabia his first foreign stop on his first trip abroad reflects the importance his administration has given to courting the Saudis. There are useful lessons to be learned from previous presidents' trips to the kingdom about how to successfully court the royal family.

The first American president to seek Saudi support was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He began by inviting two of King Ibn Saud's sons, Princes Faisal and Khalid (both future kings), to the White House in 1943 where the fundamentals of the American-Saudi relationship were agreed upon. On Valentine's Day 1945, FDR met with the king face to face on a US Navy cruiser, the USS Quincy, in the Suez Canal just after the Yalta summit. That moment is the cornerstone of the relationship.

FDR was careful to avoid any offense. He sent his daughter to Cairo for a day of shopping. A chain smoker, the president did not smoke in front of the king; instead he grabbed a quick puff in the ship's elevator on the way to lunch alone. In his discussion, FDR did well when he stuck to the big picture of strategic cooperation. When he pushed for the king to back a Jewish state in Palestine, Ibn Saud was firmly negative. The Jews should have a state carved out of Germany since they were responsible for the Holocaust. Hitting a stone wall, FDR dropped the subject.

When he learned that FDR was to meet Ibn Saud, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill insisted on his own meeting in Cairo. Churchill smoked and drank alcohol throughout the lunch. The meeting was a disaster. The British moment in the Middle East was over.