Saudi Arabia, Trump
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The United States agreed on Tuesday to sell Saudi Arabia an arms package worth nearly $142 billion, according to a White House fact sheet that called it "the largest defense cooperation agreement" Washington has ever done.
Saudi Arabia is an important U.S. ally in the Middle East. However, the ascension of Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman, colloquially known as MBS, to the political forefront in Riyadh initially stretched U.S.-Saudi relations to the limit.
Executives including Elon Musk and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, were in Saudi Arabia for new investments. That, not tariffs, is what they wanted from Trump.
Trump met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and attended a US-Saudi investment forum along with Elon Musk and other top CEOs.
Although Trump recently attended the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome, Saudi Arabia was originally intended to be his initial overseas destination, just like in his first term. It served as a gilded debut for a foreign policy focused on securing cash infusions for American businesses.
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A British Bank of America analyst has been jailed for 10 years in Saudi Arabia apparently over a since-deleted social media post.
BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Northern Trust Asset Management, Neuberger Berman and I Squared Capital signed preliminary agreements with the roughly $925 billion wealth fund to invest in its efforts to develop a series of new investment strategies focused on Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East and North Africa region.
Global political and business leaders gathered in Riyadh on Tuesday for the Saudi Arabia Investment Forum. President Donald Trump met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy were among the attendees,