President Trump delivered remarks Tuesday at a U.S.-Saudi investment summit as the White House announced a $600 billion investment from Saudi Arabia, including what it touted as the "largest defense sales agreement in history."
In Saudi Arabia, the president held up the country as an example for the Middle East, saying it's achieved a "modern miracle the Arabian way," bashing efforts of "western intervention" and blasting former President Joe Biden.
Mr. Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS, announced multiple economic and defense agreements, an indication of Mr. Trump's intent to deepen U.S.-Saudi ties, despite long-held concerns from State Department reports and human rights groups about its restriction of civil liberties, political rights and women's rights.
Speaking at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum, the president said it's a "tremendous honor" to be invited back to Saudi Arabia, where his first foreign trip took place in 2017, and called bin Salman a "friend." U.S. intelligence agencies believed bin Salman ordered the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018, but the U.S. determined that he has immunity due to his role as Saudi prime minister.
"The U.S.-Saudi relationship has been a bedrock of security and prosperity," Mr. Trump said on Tuesday. "Today, we reaffirmed this important bond, and we take the next steps to make our relationship closer, stronger and more powerful than ever before."
Mr. Trump said Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital, "is becoming not just a seat of government, but a major business, cultural and high-tech capital of the entire world."
"It's crucial for the wider world to know this great transformation has not come from western intervention or flying people in beautiful planes giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs, no," he said.
"The gleaming marbles of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Kabul, Baghdad, so many other cities," he said. "Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves. ... In the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built, and the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves."
"In recent years, far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it's our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins," the president added.
Specifically, the president and crown prince signed agreements for judicial cooperation between the Ministry of Justice in Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Department of Justice, coordination between the Pentagon and Saudi Ministry of Defense for modernization and development of the capabilities of the Saudi armed forces; and an international partnership program between the Saudi Ministry of Interior and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The package of agreements includes "extensive training and support to build the capacity of the Saudi armed forces, including enhancement of Saudi service academies and military medical services," according to the White House. It also includes billions of dollars in investments in U.S. data centers.
The package of agreements includes "extensive training and support to build the capacity of the Saudi armed forces, including enhancement of Saudi service academies and military medical services," according to the White House. It also includes billions of dollars in investments in U.S. data centers.
The president arrived in Saudi Arabia earlier Tuesday, the first stop on a four-day trip to the Middle East for Mr. Trump. The trip is his first of his second term. The president also visited Saudi Arabia before any other nation during his first term in the White House — bucking the tradition for presidents to make their first foreign trip to the United Kingdom, one of the United States' strongest allies.
After Air Force One was escorted into landing by Saudi fighter jets, Mr. Trump was greeted on the tarmac at the airport in Riyadh by the kingdom's de facto ruler, the crown prince. After a coffee ceremony, Trump then went to the Royal Court, where he and bin Salman descended a lavender carpet as trumpets sounded to mark the president's arrival.
Following the arrival ceremony, the president attended a delegation meeting and bilateral meeting.
Mr. Trump complimented the Crown Prince in remarks during their bilateral meeting, calling him "wise beyond his years." The president also said that the Saudi prince is considering a purchase of $600 billion of military equipment but joked that it could be $1 trillion.
The two leaders also participated in a business lunch with notable CEOs including Elon Musk, Larry Fink, and Stephen Schwarzman. Mr. Trump said the business leaders are expected to walk away from the visit "with a lot of checks."
Saudi Arabia is of key diplomatic importance to the Trump White House, especially amid ongoing efforts to negotiate a deal with Iran over its nuclear program, and with the Israel-Hamas war still raging in Gaza. The president and the crown prince held private talks earlier Tuesday which were expected to span a wide range of topics, from Iran's nuclear program to the war in Gaza and keeping oil prices in check.
But the visit also focused on business, as the president has looked to strengthen ties with the Middle East partner. And Joining Mr. Trump at the investment summit were expected to be some high-profile business leaders, including Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Palantir's Alex Karp, Citigroup's Jane Fraser, BlackRock's Larry Fink, Franklin Templeton Investments's Jenny Johnson, Uber's Dara Khosrowshahi, BDT & MSD Partners' Dina Powell McCormick and Blackstone's Steve Schwarzman, according to multiple sources familiar with the event.
Later this week, Mr. Trump will travel to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Qatar has offered to donate a jumbo jet donated by the royal family of Qatar for Mr. Trump's exclusive use as a presidential plane.
Mr. Trump has defended accepting the gift of the plane, saying Monday "I could be a stupid person and say, oh no, we don't want a free plane."
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Kaia Hubbard