RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — On the first day of his visit to the Middle East, President Trump combined business with diplomacy, reaching out to the nascent government in Syria, extending an olive branch to Iran and agreeing to what the White House hailed as the largest economic pact signed by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.
The economic agreements include a $142-billion defense deal with Saudi Arabia, providing the kingdom with a slew of modern weaponry and offensive systems that Trump’s predecessor, President Biden, had been holding in reserve to incentivize the Saudi royal family to normalize relations with the Israeli government.
In total, the White House said, Trump signed agreements with the Saudis on artificial intelligence, energy infrastructure, healthcare investment and aerospace manufacturing that are worth about $600 billion. That number could not immediately be verified.
The financial deals, struck as the U.S.-Saudi Investment Summit was held in the Riyadh, the capital, lent a pragmatism to the president’s visit to a country that has proved to be an ethically challenging U.S. ally for decades.
The moves on Syria and Iran had been advocated by the Saudis and their Arab allies since Trump returned to office in January. Dispensing with tradition, Trump expressed a willingness to engage directly with players in the region that are viewed with deep suspicion in Washington, including Syria’s new president and the leadership in Iran.
“I have never believed in having permanent enemies,” Trump said in extensive remarks at an investment forum Tuesday. “I am different than a lot of people think.”
“Far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins,” he added. “It is God’s job to sit in judgment.”
In his speech, Trump addressed Iran’s ongoing nuclear enrichment program, stating once again that Tehran would “never have a nuclear weapon.”
“I’m here today not merely to condemn the past chaos of Iran’s leaders, but to offer them a new path and a much better path toward a far better and more hopeful future,” he said. “But if Iran’s leadership rejects this olive branch, and continues to attack their neighbors, then we will have no choice but to inflict massive maximum pressure.”
Trump also said he would end sweeping sanctions on Syria imposed during the country’s civil war, drawing a standing ovation from those assembled to hear his speech, and fulfilling a long-repeated request from Syria’s leaders and its Arab and international allies. Syria’s longtime leader, Bashar Assad, was overthrown in December, and the country is now headed by an Islamist government.
Trump said he would order the cessation of the sanctions so as to give Syria “a chance at greatness.”
“The sanctions were brutal and crippling and served as an important function, but now it’s their turn to shine,” he said. “So I say good luck, Syria. Show us something very special like they’ve done, frankly, in Saudi Arabia.”
He said he was spurred in his decision by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“Oh, what I do for the crown prince,” Trump quipped.
Trump greeted by Saudi pomp
Trump arrived Tuesday in the Saudi capital for the first leg of his Middle East tour. He was welcomed with a pomp-and-circumstance-filled ceremony and a high-powered lunch with top business leaders and government figures before giving a speech at an investment forum.
After Air Force One landed in Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport — escorted by Saudi Arabian F-15s — Trump emerged, pumped his fist in the air, then stepped off the plane onto a lavender carpet, where the crown prince greeted him with a jovial, two-handed handshake — a contrast to the seemingly reluctant fist bump he once gave President Biden.
Trump and the prince then walked to an ornate hall where they engaged in a traditional coffee welcome ceremony, the first phase of a two-day visit suffused with similar displays of pageantry.
Once done, Trump drove in the limousine known as “the Beast,” flanked by a phalanx of horsemen carrying Saudi and American flags, then stood before an honor guard and a military band that played “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the Saudi national anthem.
Joining Trump was a raft of U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, special envoy Steve Witkoff and dozens of business leaders. In one unusual moment during the meeting, Trump offered a salute — typically reserved for U.S. service members — to a Saudi military officer.
Later, at a lavish lunch in Al-Yamamah Palace, Trump and the crown prince began an hourlong glad-handing session featuring Saudi royals, officials and military commanders.
Also on hand were elite business figures and star chief executives — all part of a 250-person guest list focusing on banking, tech, health, defense and artificial intelligence, including Elon Musk, a top aide to the president, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Los Angeles Times owner and biotech entrepreneur Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong also attended the lunch.
Yet it was business deals promised to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars that were the main focus of the day.
Trump employed his usual patter to the proceedings, touting American-made weapons as “the best military equipment in the world, by far.”
“As you know, we have the biggest business leaders in the world here,” Trump said. “They’re going to walk away with a lot of checks for a lot of things that you’re going to provide.”
He added that his 24 hours in the country would yield an estimated 2 million job opportunities in the United States.
After the lunch, Trump and Mohammed signed a strategic economic partnership agreement, which, according to Saudi state media, included memorandums of understanding on energy, mining, mineral resources, defense and a cooperation agreement between NASA and the Saudi Space Agency.
Trump will remain in the kingdom through Wednesday, when he will meet briefly with Syria’s de facto president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, for the first time — a significant gesture by the American president toward an unknown leader and former Al Qaeda member. Trump will travel to Qatar on Wednesday and end the trip Thursday in the United Arab Emirates.
The business summit preceding Trump’s speech was an all-day affair of roundtable discussions and onstage debates replete with the aphorisms and announcements that are de rigueur in such events.
CEOs of Saudi Arabia’s so-called giga-projects, sprawling construction sites that are already sprouting across the country, spoke glowingly of the kingdom’s potential as a tourist destination. Jerry Inzerillo, who heads a massive tourism project near Diriyah, compared the site’s future to Beverly Hills, touting it as a walkable mini-city with 6 million trees and six miles of parks.
Still, the focus was squarely on AI, with leaders in Saudi Arabia’s new state-sponsored AI company, Humain, joining the stage with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to discuss the country’s plan to amass enough computing infrastructure to make it a major player in AI.
In the hours before Trump’s address, business leaders who signed memorandums of understanding with the Saudi government assembled for a group photo with government officials. Later, Musk took to the stage and returned to the now perennial theme of autonomous taxis, which he promised would soon make their debut.
As the sun waned, Trump and the crown prince arrived at the Ritz-Carlton, where the summit was held. (The hotel was once used as a gilded prison for dozens of officials and business figures ensnared in the government’s anticorruption drive shortly after Mohammed’s father, King Salman, took power.)
The crown prince led Trump into a gallery with pictures depicting previous meetings between U.S. presidents and Saudi monarchs, starting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s meeting with King Ibn Saud on board the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Quincy in 1945.
The leaders then toured a room with scale models showcasing the future form of the country’s giga-projects.
When they entered the hall, the Saudis’ penchant for ceremony was again in full force, with strains of the theme from the movie “Air Force One” playing as the leaders walked to their positions near the stage, amid a scandal roiling Washington over a proposal by Trump to accept a historic gift from Qatar: A Boeing jet worth $400 million, which would serve as Air Force One for the duration of his term.
Bulos reported from Riyadh and Wilner from Washington.
