01/23/2025January 23, 2025
Trump speaks to Saudi Crown Prince MBS in first foreign call
US President Donald Trump spoke with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in the first call with a foreign leader during his presidency.
A readout of the call was provided by the Saudi Foreign Ministry. During the discussion, MBS congratulated Trump and discussed “ways for cooperation between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America to promote peace, security and stability in the Middle East, in addition to enhancing bilateral cooperation to combat terrorism.”
MBS also said Saudi Arabia intends “to broaden its investments and trade with the United States over the next four years to the amount of $600 billion (€576.5 billion) and potentially beyond that.”
Later, during his speech to business leaders in Davos, Trump said that he would ask Saudi Arabia to invest $1 trillion in the United States.
“I’ll be asking the crown prince, who’s a fantastic guy, to round it out to around $1 trillion,” Trump said in a speech carried by video at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “I think they’ll do that because we’ve been very good to them.”
During his first term in office from 2017 to 2021, Trump emphasized a strong relationship with . There were numerous reports that Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner would communicate frequently with MBS via WhatsApp, prompting cybersecurity concerns.
In 2018, Saudi journalist was murdered after he walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. During that time, questions swirled that MBS had ordered the killing, with the Trump administration shrugging off the assassination and working to protect the US-Saudi relationship from criticism.
After Trump left office, a golf series funded by Saudi Arabia held a tournament in 2022 at one of Trump’s properties in New Jersey, known as LIV Golf Bedminster. LIV Golf will host another tournament at Trump’s Doral Resort this year in April during his second term.
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