President Donald Trump said Saudi Arabia would commit to investing US$1 trillion ($1.3 trillion) in the US, a key goal of his first scheduled foreign trip since returning to office.
“If you take a look at other presidencies, they wouldn’t do US$1 trillion, sometimes in years. We did this in essentially two months,” Trump said during a Saudi-US investment summit in Riyadh.
The White House issued a press release earlier outlining agreements it said tallied up to US$600 billion. Full details of the announcements were not immediately available.
The figure fell short of the US$1 trillion Trump has said he wanted. After the press release, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said from the stage that he would work to raise the spending to that level just before Trump spoke.
Trump’s focus on foreign direct investment in the US is no accident. The former real estate developer prizes transactional economic agreements and has cast himself as America’s dealmaker-in-chief.
Ali Shihabi, a Saudi author and commentator who was at the Al-Yamamah Palace as one of the dignitaries invited to greet Trump, said it was important to look beyond the monetary value of the investment announcements.
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“The visit is highlighting the strength of the relationship and adding ballast by creating a continuously expanding web of ties in the economic, political and security fields,” Shihabi said in an interview.
The pact includes US defense sales valued at nearly US$142 billion, providing Saudi Arabia with “state-of-the-art warfighting equipment and services from over a dozen U.S. defense firms,” the White House said.
The sales package is set to include equipment running the gamut of defense technology, from air force capabilities to maritime security as well as information and communication services, according to the statement.
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Boeing Co. is expected to sell US$4.8 billion worth of 737-8 passenger aircraft for AviLease, the White House said.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Oracle Corp., Salesforce Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Uber Technologies Inc. and Saudi-based DataVolt will invest US$80 billion “in cutting-edge transformative technologies in both countries.” DataVolt is “moving forward with plans” to spend US$20 billion in artificial intelligence data centers and energy infrastructure in the US, according to the statement.
The statement came after Trump signed a series of memoranda during a state visit with the crown prince, known as MBS, and before the US president was due to speak at an investment summit in Riyadh.
Trump’s approach to foreign policy is heavily influenced by “his version of economic statecraft, which is to look toward the wealthy states in the Gulf and their very large sovereign wealth funds as sources of investment in the United States,” said Steven Cook, a senior fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The investment summit drew together top business leaders from the kingdom and the US. Trump’s billionaire ally Elon Musk, who oversees the president’s government cost-cutting effort, spoke, as did BlackRock Inc.’s Larry Fink, Amazon.com Inc.’s Andy Jassy and Jensen Huang of Nvidia Corp. Other CEOs, including Citigroup Inc.’s Jane Fraser and Blackstone’s Stephen A. Schwarzman, participated in events around the summit.
The event is a centerpiece of Trump’s bid to boost business deals with allies in the Middle East and attract more foreign investment to the US. The agenda, which spanned topics including finance, energy and artificial intelligence, highlighted the sectors that are figuring prominently in the region.
The crown prince’s investment pledges may clash with his own plans to transform the kingdom’s economy, with a view to reduce a historic dependence on oil. His ambitions — which include major infrastructure projects such as futuristic new city Neom — are likely to cost close to US$2 trillion, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg News.
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Hosting Trump is a critical opportunity for Saudi Arabia to attract some of that required capital from the US and other investors. The kingdom is aiming to draw US$100 billion in foreign direct investment annually by 2030, but last year attracted US$20.7 billion — the lowest since 2020.
Crude prices at around US$62 a barrel are piling further pressure on Saudi Arabia’s finances, with Bloomberg Economics estimating the kingdom needs a price of at least US$96 a barrel to balance its budget.
AI is a particular focus of Trump’s trip, with countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE jockeying to become hubs for the emerging technology. Those ambitions rest in part on their ability to access cutting-edge US chips, currently restricted by Biden-era rules aimed at preventing China from gaining an edge in the AI race.
The Trump administration plans to rescind some of those curbs and the UAE has pledged a US$1.4 trillion investment in the US over 10 years to win over the president. That was agreed following a meeting between the US President and Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan in March. Trump is scheduled to visit Abu Dhabi on Thursday.
Musk’s xAI has joined with Abu Dhabi’s MGX, as well as Microsoft Corp. and BlackRock in an effort to build US$30 billion worth of data centers and other AI infrastructure.
