Saudi Arabia Deals, deals, deals: Trump in the Middle East
Three countries in four days: US President Donald Trump will be touring the Middle East in the coming days. First Saudi Arabia, then Qatar and finally the United Arab Emirates. It is the Republican's first major trip abroad in his new term of office - and it comes at a time of war and crisis in the region. However, Trump's trip is not just about the conflicts in the Middle East, but above all about business.
13.05.2025, 05:20
SDA
The trip sheds light on Trump's economic ties in the Gulf region and the role that money plays in the US president's foreign policy. This is particularly true at the first stop in Riyadh, where the 78-year-old Trump meets a powerful man who is only half his age, but with whom he is linked above all by major financial transactions: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as "MBS". The 39-year-old has been the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia since 2017.
The Saudi crown prince: almost all power centralized
According to critics, "MBS" has set new standards when it comes to how unscrupulously someone uses their power for their own benefit. After the murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, which the crown prince allegedly ordered, he was sidelined in the West for several years. Trump, on the other hand, stood by him during his first term in office.
The crown prince has centralized almost all power under his leadership. The 89-year-old father and King Salman hardly appears in public anymore.
The crown prince's supporters see him as a visionary and reformer who wants to lead the country out of its dependence on oil and into a glittering future of technology and progress. Criticism is not tolerated and is pursued with all severity. In some cases, courts have imposed dozens of years in prison for a few posts on social media.
Saudi Arabia's wealth from the oil and gas business rests primarily in the sovereign wealth fund PIF, which is one of the largest in the world with assets and investments worth well over 900 billion US dollars - many of which are in US companies. It is managed by the crown prince himself, who thus has the country's concentrated economic power more or less in his own hands. The declared goal is to grow assets to two trillion dollars by 2030. Trump has announced his intention to set up a US sovereign wealth fund of a similar size.
The entanglements of the Trump world in the region
The US president and his entourage have close economic ties to the region - even if the White House indignantly rejects the idea that Trump could be pursuing personal interests in office. Trump's real estate company, run by his sons Eric and Don Junior, is very active in the Gulf region.
Shortly before the visit, the Trump Organization announced new projects there: the first Trump Hotel in Dubai and a golf club in Qatar. The construction of a Trump skyscraper was already announced last year for the Saudi port city of Jeddah. Trump's sons and their business partners have also just made public a cooperation in the Middle East on the subject of cryptocurrencies, in which a state-backed fund from the Emirates is also involved.
According to reports, Trump was already doing millions in business in the region before his first term in office, including with the Saudis. In 2001, for example, he sold the entire 45th floor of his Trump Tower in New York to the kingdom. The business relationships go back decades. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner maintains excellent contacts with the Saudi crown prince. Following Kushner's departure from the White House, the sovereign wealth fund PIF reportedly invested two billion dollars in Kushner's private equity company.
Foreign policy as a barter deal
Trump likes to present himself as a wheeler-dealer, a "dealmaker" for whom economic considerations take precedence over fundamental values such as human rights. The Republican's foreign policy is primarily transactional. Where democratic values or principles used to set the course, under Trump the question is: what's in it for America? During the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, for example, he tied further support for Kiev to access to the country's natural resources. During the Gaza war, he came up with the idea of developing the Gaza Strip as a glossy real estate project: as the "Riviera of the Middle East".
Trump had already set an example in his first term of office when he became the first country ever to visit Saudi Arabia after taking office in January 2017 - in return for huge investments by the Saudis in the USA. After the start of his second term in office, he unabashedly flirted with the idea that he would again do the Saudis the honor of his first visit if they were prepared to invest a trillion dollars in the USA. Details of major economic deals are therefore expected during the trip.
Relations between the Saudis and the USA
Saudi Arabia is generally an important partner of the USA in the Middle East. It is one of the most important oil producers, one of the largest buyers of US armaments and an important investor. And for Washington, Saudi Arabia is the great counterweight to Iran, Israel's main enemy, when it comes to regional supremacy in the Middle East. The crown prince, in turn, tried to win the president's favor, as he did during Trump's first term in office, also because the US is a key partner for the purchase of weapons and defense systems.
US-Saudi relations had been strained at times due to the Khashoggi case. Unlike Trump, his successor Joe Biden initially kept his distance from the Saudi leadership. However, in view of the political and economic importance of the Saudis, Biden later also cautiously approached them again, including with a visit to Riyadh and a much-noticed "fist bump" with the pretender to the throne, whom he had actually wanted to make an "outsider" because of the Khashoggi murder.
Now Trump is back - and with him the course of big money deals and open arms towards Riyadh and the crown prince. The Saudi royal family has known since the Khashoggi case that it has Trump on its side as a supporter - no matter what it does. This message also goes out to other authoritarian states: If a country is economically significant enough, Trump's government will forgive a lot.
