On Wednesday, August 15, MEI hosted a roundtable featuring Khaled Almaeena, a veteran Saudi journalist, commentator, and businessman, to discuss U.S.-Saudi relations given President Trump's continued interest in hosting a U.S.-GCC summit in September, the U.S. role on the intra-GCC dispute, rising regional tensions and continued U.S. support of the coalition in their fight against the Houthis. MEI's director for government relations, policy, and programs, Amb. (ret.) Gerald Feierstein, moderated the discussion.
Khaled Almaeena
Khaled Almaeena is a veteran Saudi journalist, commentator, and businessman. The former editor-in-chief of Arab News and Saudi Gazette, he is also a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the University of Central Florida’s Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd Program for Strategic Research and Studies. Al Maeena is a co-founder and board member of NAAM Association, which promotes cultural dialog and supports civil society organizations. He has held a broad range of positions in Saudi media for over thirty years, including CEO of a PR firm, Saudi Television news anchor, talk show host, radio announcer, and lecturer. As a journalist, Al Maeena has represented Saudi media at Arab summits in Baghdad, Morocco and elsewhere. In 1990, he was one of four journalists to cover the historic resumption of diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Russia. He also traveled to China on multiple occasions, most recently in 2016, as part of Saudi diplomatic missions. An expert on South Asia, Al Maeena was groundbreaking in establishing South Asian pages in Saudi newspapers. His political and social columns appear regularly in Al Arabiya, Gulf News, Asharq al-Aswat, al-Eqtisadiah, Arab News, Times of Oman, Asian Age and The China Post. In April 2019 he was awarded a lifetime achievement award at the International Media Gala in Dubai.