BlackRock Inc’s Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink, Citigroup Inc’s Jane Fraser and top bosses of American tech firms will visit Saudi Arabia along with Donald Trump next week.
Trump, who’s also going to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on his first scheduled trip abroad since returning to power, is keen for the oil- and gas-rich Gulf states to ramp up investments in the US and buy more of its goods.
Other US executives who will travel to Riyadh include Blackstone Inc's Steve Schwarzman, Franklin Templeton’s Jenny Johnson, and Alphabet Inc's Ruth Porat. They’re slated slated to speak at the Saudi-US Investment Forum on May 13. The event is being held on the day Trump arrives in Saudi Arabia, where he’s expected to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
IBM Corp’s CEO Arvind Krishna and Qualcomm Inc.’s Cristiano Amon will also be at the investment conference.
The confab will span topics including energy, artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and finance. It’s set to feature White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks and key local names including Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser as well as the kingdom’s ministers of energy, investment and finance.
The US president has sought US$1 trillion in increased investment and trade from Saudi Arabia, and around the same amount from the UAE.
See also: The Saudi difference
Yet Trump’s trip comes at a time when a slump in oil prices over the past month — partly triggered by his tariff wars hurting the global economy — are hitting the finances of Gulf states. Saudi Arabia is increasing borrowing rapidly because its expenditure needs at home remain high. The kingdom is in the middle of a multi-trillion dollar economic diversification drive known as Vision 2030.
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Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has been eying closer defense ties with the US and security guarantees to bolster its efforts to become the dominant business hub of the Gulf.
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The kingdom will also seek to use Trump’s visit to attract more foreign capital from foreign investors. Saudi Arabia aims to secure more than US$100 billion in foreign direct investment annually by 2030, about five times what it brought in last year.
Many of the firms participating at the Saudi-US Investment Forum have strong ties to the kingdom, with top executives regularly appearing at Riyadh’s flagship annual event known as the Future Investment Initiative.
