US President Donald Trump can be said to love it when other world leaders fawn over him. In his first trip abroad since taking the White House at the beginning of this year Trump has again visited Saudi Arabia, followed by two more visits to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) among others on his Middle East tour. According to journalists aboard Air Force One (the official presidential plane) Trump received a dramatic fighter jet escort through the Kingdom’s airspace on Tuesday, May 13. The journalists stated that six Saudi F-15s cruised closely alongside the plane, three on each wing, for the final 30 minutes of the flight. This was reported in the New York Post. On landing, the Lavender Carpet was laid out for the US President as he made a fist pump into the air.
The streets of Riyadh were lined with US flags for Trump’s visit, and mobile billboards along the route have been advertising Disney’s Abu Dhabi theme park in the nearby United Arab Emirates. Trump’s packed schedule included a speech to an investor forum with tech bigwigs, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Altman, before participating in a state dinner. Notably, Trump’s tour of the Middle East also includes Qatar and the UAE and is expected to focus on drumming up investments for the US. The United States and Saudi Arabia signed a massive $142 billion arms deal, a sales agreement called the largest “in history” by the White House. The White House said, “The United States and Saudi Arabia signed the largest defense sales agreement in history – nearly $142 billion, providing Saudi Arabia with state-of-the-art warfighting equipment.”
It should be noted that the “special relationship” between the Saudi Kingdom and the United States goes back decades. It has at times been very much a personal alliance for good or evil. But this welcome for Trump speaks volumes in its unprecedentedness. The presence of tech billionaires such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman (CEO of Open AI) points to an interest in the progress of Saudi Arabia’s Giga Project “Neom” most notably “The Line” section. This will be a source for establishing their Artificial Intelligence Operations for the future. Trump is in Riyadh to open the door for these investments because Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman is in need of the money. The Saudi Monarchy for its part is more than happy to pay $142 billion dollars for US manufactured weapons and military equipment in exchange for Washington to assist in propping up its economy.
Donald Trump voiced hope Tuesday that Saudi Arabia will eventually recognise Israel, in a speech in Riyadh in the presence of the crown prince. “It’s my fervent hope and wish, and even my dream, that Saudi Arabia, a place I have such respect for… will soon be joining the Abraham accords” in which three other Arab countries normalised diplomatic relations with Israel, Trump said.
Donald Trump said Saudi Arabia would commit to investing $1 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 $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 $600 billion. Full details of the announcements were not immediately available.
The figure fell short of the $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 is hellbent in ensuring that the Saudi Monarchy gives the Israeli Zionist regime diplomatic recognition without the Israelis even considering giving any recognition to a Palestinian state. This means Trump wants Riyadh to sweep the two-state solution under the rug and exchange ambassadors with Tel Aviv without consequences. Trump and his inner circle have already persuaded Bahrain, the UAE and Morocco to do this by signing what they (the Trump Administration) call the Abraham Accords in 2020. Trump does not just want but desire for Saudi Arabia to follow suite.
Trump’s other main agenda in this visit to Riyadh is to move the Saudi monarchy away from the BRICS Alliance and back into Washington’s sphere of influence. Trump of course wants Bin Salman (also known as MBS) to continue with the decades old arrangement that was agreed between his late grandfather and the Saudi Kingdom’s founder King Abdul Aziz bin Saud and the Late US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt where the Saudis solely trade their oil (or whatever is left of it) in US Dollars and the American Industrial-military complex sells them weapons.
Well, it looks like business is booming in more ways than one. Notably absent from this meeting and pageantry for Trump was the Crown Prince’s father King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz. Not even for a photo shoot with President Trump. MBS was at the forefront of the welcoming committee the whole time. It looks to be a sign that the ailing king is not well and MBS may soon take the throne.
Article written by:
Yacoob Cassim
Journalist at Radio Al Ansaar
