President Donald Trump arrived in Riyadh on Tuesday morning in his first major overseas trip since returning to the White House, with no shortage of pomp from the kingdom.
Saudi fighter jets escorted Air Force One through the kingdom’s airspace. When Trump landed at the Royal Terminal at King Khalid International Airport, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman greeted him on a lavender carpet unfurled across the tarmac.
The two men later sat down for Arabic coffee in navy-and-gold armchairs at the opulent Saudi Royal Court, alongside Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marc Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. A high-powered list of U.S. business figures including Teslo CEO and Department of Government Efficiency lead Elon Musk, Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman, and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink were also in attendance.
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Later on Tuesday, Trump is expected to attend a dinner with MBS, as well as a U.S.-Saudi investment event. A key focus of the first leg of Trump’s four-day Middle East tour will be economic deals between the U.S. and oil-rich Gulf nations. MBS pledged in January to invest $600 billion in the U.S., and Trump reportedly has a $1 trillion wish-list.
The business deals are expected to cover energy, AI, manufacturing, and defense. The U.S. will reportedly offer Saudi Arabia an arms package worth over $100 billion, according to Reuters.
“There is also the potential for a civil-nuclear deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, which was long tied to the possibility of Saudi-Israel normalization but has recently been decoupled,” Elizabeth Dent, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told TIME.
Experts, including Dent, have touted the potential deals as a boon to Saudi plans to diversify its economy away from oil under the kingdom’s Vision 2030.
While in Saudi Arabia, Trump is expected to attend a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit. Here, more diplomatic issues will be discussed, including working toward an end to the war in Gaza, plus talks on a possible nuclear deal with Iran.
Later in the week, Trump will visit Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to discuss other diplomatic and investment deals. This week, the President said he plans to accept a luxury jet as a gift from Qatar, which has raised considerable legal and constitutional concerns.
Trump’s first overseas trip in his previous term was to the Middle East. The expectation was the same would happen once Trump returned to the White House. But the President traveled abroad last month to attend the funeral of Pope Francis.
In May 2017, Trump attended the Arab-Islamic-American summit in Riyadh, where regional leaders came together to discuss security and terrorism issues. Investment between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia was a key outcome of the visit, as is expected for this week’s trip.
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