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    Elon Musk shows he still has the White House’s ear on Trump’s Middle East trip

    Over the course of an eight-minute interview, Elon Musk touted his numerous businesses and vision of a “Star Trek future” while telling the crowd that his Tesla Optimus robots had performed a dance for Donald Trump and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, to the tune of YMCA. He also announced that Starlink, his satellite internet company, had struck a deal for use in Saudi Arabia for maritime and aviation usage; looking to the near future, he expressed his desire to bring Tesla’s self-driving robotaxis to the country.“We could not be more appreciative of having a lifetime partner and a friend like you, Elon, to the Kingdom,” Saudi Arabia’s minister of communications and IT, Abdullah Alswaha, told Musk.Although Musk has pivoted away from his role as de facto leader of the so-called “department of government efficiency” and moved out of the White House, the Saudi summit showed how he is still retaining his proximity to the US president and international influence. As Musk returns to his businesses as his primary focus, he is still primed to reap the rewards of his connections and political sway over Trump.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionStarlink diplomacyMusk’s Starlink announcement comes after a spate of countries have agreed to allow the satellite communications service to operate within their borders. Several countries that have approved Starlink did so after US state department officials mentioned the company by name or pushed for increased satellite services in negotiations over Trump’s sweeping tariffs, according to internal memos obtained by the Washington Post.Concerns over whether Musk and the Trump administration are leveraging their power to force countries into adopting Starlink has prompted calls for a state department inspector general investigation into whether there is undue influence at play in these agreements. On Wednesday, a group of Democratic senators issued a letter requesting a broad review of the state department’s alleged efforts to assist Starlink.“These reports indicate that Mr Musk may be using his official role and his proximity to the President as leverage for his own personal financial benefit – even if it comes at the expense of American consumers and the nation’s foreign policy interests,” the senators wrote.Musk’s empire expands in Saudi ArabiaThe Saudi-US Investment Forum summit was held in Riyadh and featured top ministers from the kingdom’s government as well as US cabinet secretaries Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick. Saudi Arabia has been sinking billions into tech and artificial intelligence in recent years as it expands its portfolio of investments, in addition to its already extensive deals in industries such as defense and energy. The White House and Saudi government announced an arms deal worth $142bn following the event.Musk was one of a long list of Silicon Valley moguls and top executives of major US companies to attend the summit. The CEO of Palantir and Musk ally, Alex Karp, took part, as did the OpenAI CEO and Musk rival, Sam Altman. Amazon’s chief executive, Andy Jassy, and Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, were some of the other tech leaders present. The list also included CEOs from a range of boldface names such as Boeing, Coca-Cola and Halliburton.Earlier on Tuesday, Musk talked with Trump and Prince Mohammed inside the Saudi Royal Court and warmly greeted both leaders. Weeks before Musk’s arrival in Riyadh, his Twitter/X social media platform had managed to refinance some of its billions in debt with help from a Saudi fund. Tesla also launched in Saudi Arabia last month, opening a new showroom in the capital. More

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    Donald Trump says lifting sanctions on Syria ‘gives them a chance of greatness’ – US politics live

    Donald Trump has said that lifting sanctions on Syria “gives them a chance of greatness”.“The sanctions were really crippling, very powerful,” he added. He said the US will drop “all of the sanctions on Syria, which I think will be a good thing.”He said that he is looking to normalise relations with Syria.President Donald Trump continues his visit to the Middle East with a Qatari state visit later today.According to a schedule released by the White House, the president will arrive at Doha’s Hamad International Airport within the next hour, before stopping off to visit Amiri Diwan.He will then arrive at St Regis Doha for the state visit shortly before 4pm local time.Trump is also scheduled to attend a state dinner at the Lusail Palace this evening at 8pm.The meeting between Donald Trump and Syria’s president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, in Saudi Arabia was the culmination of months of diplomacy by the Syrians, as well as their Turkish and Saudi allies, who believed face time with Trump would help end Syria’s international isolation, writes William Christou.Damascus had prepared a pitch to Trump that included access to Syrian oil, reassurances of Israel’s security and a proposal to build a Trump tower in Damascus.A meeting with Trump was seen as a key step towards recognition of the legitimacy of the new authority in Damascus after Bashar al-Assad was ousted as Syria’s president in December.The Trump administration had previously been wary of engaging with Sharaa, a former leader of the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.Though sanctions were originally imposed on Assad after his bloody crackdown on peaceful protesters in 2011, the US and other countries retained their economic embargo on Syria as they evaluated the new Islamist-led government in Damascus.The US state department had handed the Syrians an extensive list of conditions to end sanctions and were in the process of negotiating when Trump suddenly announced the lifting of US sanctions on Tuesday night.At the end of his speech to the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh, Trump told leaders in the region that he wants them to forge a Middle East that is “thriving” and the “geographic centre of the world”. He said the “whole world is talking about what you are doing”.He added that it had been a pleasure to spend time with Mohammed bin Salman before he criticised the “fake news” media.Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has told Donald Trump that Arab Gulf states were seeking to work with the US to de-escalate tensions in the region, as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza continues to drag on and destabilise the Middle East.According to a White House spokesperson, Donald Trump called on Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa to ‘“deport Palestinian terrorists” and to help the US to prevent the resurgence of Islamic State. He urged Syria to sign onto the Abraham Accords with Israel.Al-Sharaa invited American companies to invest in Syrian oil and gas.During Trump’s speech to Arab leaders, he said he wants a future of “safety and dignity” for Palestinians but warned that was impossible if leaders in Gaza continued down a path of violence.He praised the “constructive role that the leaders in this room have taken trying to bring this conflict to an end”.He also thanked those involved in helping secure the release of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander.Donald Trump has said that lifting sanctions on Syria “gives them a chance of greatness”.“The sanctions were really crippling, very powerful,” he added. He said the US will drop “all of the sanctions on Syria, which I think will be a good thing.”He said that he is looking to normalise relations with Syria.Donald Trump has said he wants to make a deal with Iran, but it can only go ahead if the regime stops “supporting terror” and abandons its nuclear plans.“Many are watching with envy,” Trump told assembled Arab leaders during a speech and said there “are incredible deals within reach for this region”.He accused the Biden administration of “creating bedlam by being incompetent”.The US president says “people at this table know where my loyalties lie”.In related news, Iran’s deputy foreign minister will meet with European diplomats for nuclear talks in Istanbul on Friday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Wednesday.Reuters reported on Tuesday that Iran would hold talks on the now moribund 2015 nuclear deal with European parties, which include France, Britain and Germany.Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said Donald Turmp’s decision to lift sanctions on Syria is of historic importance, Turkish state-owned Anadolu news agency reported on Wednesday.Erdoğan met online with Donald Trump, Mohammed bin Salman and Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa.Speaking at an investment forum on Tuesday, Trump said that he planned to lift sanctions on Syria after holding talks with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. “I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,” Trump said.Ahmed al-Sharaa’s pitch to woo the US president offered access to Syrian oil, reconstruction contracts and to build a Trump Tower in Damascus in exchange for the lifting of US sanctions on Syria.Though the details of the sanctions relief were still unclear, Sharaa’s team in Damascus was celebrating, writes William Christou in Beirut.“This is amazing, it worked,” said Radwan Ziadeh, a Syrian writer and activist who is close to the Syrian president. He shared a picture of an initial mockup of Trump Tower Damascus. “This is how you win his heart and mind,” he said, noting that Sharaa would probably show Trump the design during their meeting in Riyadh on Wednesday.Donald Trump has met Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia after agreeing to lift sanctions on Syria.Despite concerns within sectors of his administration over the Syria’s leaders’ former ties to Al Qaeda, Trump said on Tuesday during a speech in Riyadh he would lift sanctions on Syria. The onetime insurgent leader spent years imprisoned by US forces after being captured in Iraq.The White House says Trump agreed to “say hello” to al-Sharaa before the US leader wraps up his visit to Saudi Arabia and moves on to Qatar.Trump is also scheduled to attend a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the grouping of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. He then sets off for Qatar, the second stop in his Gulf tour. Trump will be honored with a state dinner in Qatar.Al-Sharaa was named president of Syria in January, a month after a stunning offensive by insurgent groups led by al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, stormed Damascus and ended the 54-year rule of the Assad family.Trump said he decided to meet with al-Sharaa after being encouraged to do so by Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The president also pledged to lift years-long sanctions on Syria.“There is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace,” Trump said in a wide-ranging foreign policy address Tuesday in which he announced he was lifting the sanctions that have been in place in Syria since 2011. “That’s what we want to see in Syria.”Trump also urged Iran to take a “new and a better path” as he pushes for a new nuclear deal and said he wanted to avoid conflict with Tehran.The United States and Saudi Arabia signed a $142bn arms deal touted by the White House as the “largest defence sales agreement in history” in the first stop of Donald Trump’s four-day diplomatic tour to the Gulf states aimed at securing big deals and spotlighting the benefits of Trump’s transactional foreign policy. More

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    Trump news at a glance: president gives Syria ‘chance at greatness’ with promise of sanctions relief

    Donald Trump has announced plans to lift sanctions on Syria after holding talks with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, describing it as an effort to “give them a chance at greatness”.The announcement came as the White House also confirmed that Trump would meet with Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former rebel commander whose forces helped overthrow Bashar al-Assad in 2024. It would be the first face-to-face meeting between a US president and a Syrian leader since 2000, when Bill Clinton met with the late leader Hafez al-Assad in Geneva.Sharaa’s pitch to Trump for sanctions relief included access to Syrian oil, reconstruction contracts and to build a Trump Tower in Damascus, according to sources who spoke to Reuters.“I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness. It’s their time to shine,” Trump said at an investment forum on Tuesday in Riyadh. “We’re taking them all off. Good luck Syria, show us something very special.”Here are the key Trump administration stories of today:Trump announces $142bn US-Saudi arms deal and Syrian sanctions reliefThe United States and Saudi Arabia have signed a $142bn arms deal touted by the White House as the “largest defence sales agreement in history”. Trump announced sanctions relief on Syria alongside the Saudi arms deal, in the first stop of his four-day diplomatic tour to the Gulf states aimed at securing big deals and spotlighting the benefits of Trump’s transactional foreign policy.Read the full storyTop Democrat to obstruct DoJ picks over Trump jet giftThe Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, announced on Tuesday he would obstruct all Trump administration justice department nominations until the White House provided answers about plans to accept a luxury aircraft from Qatar for presidential use.The move has ignited controversy over the constitutional and security implications of accepting a foreign government’s offer to provide what would become the new Air Force One. Schumer called the proposed arrangement “not just naked corruption”, likening it to something so corrupt “that even [Russian president Vladimir] Putin would give a double take”.Read the full storyUS tech firms secure AI deals as Trump tours Gulf statesA swath of US technology firms announced deals in the Middle East as Trump trumpeted $600bn in commitments from Saudi Arabia to American artificial intelligence companies during a tour of Gulf states.Among the biggest deals was a set signed by Nvidia. The company will sell hundreds of thousands of AI chips in Saudi Arabia, with a first tranche of 18,000 of its newest “Blackwell” chips going to Humain, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign-wealth-fund-owned AI startup, Reuters reported. Cisco on Tuesday said it had signed a deal with G42, the AI firm based in the United Arab Emirates, to help the company develop that country’s AI sector.Read the full storyFederal grand jury indicts Wisconsin judge over alleged obstructionA federal grand jury has indicted a Wisconsin judge who was arrested by the FBI last month on allegations that she helped an undocumented immigrant avoid federal authorities.Hannah Dugan, a county circuit court judge in Milwaukee, was charged on Tuesday with concealing a person from arrest and obstruction of proceedings.Read the full storyTrump must realise Putin is an obstacle to peace, Zelenskyy saysVolodymyr Zelenskyy has said he hopes the current period of frantic diplomacy and high-stakes gambits between Russia and Ukraine will end with Trump understanding that Vladimir Putin is the real obstacle to a peace deal.“Trump needs to believe that Putin actually lies. And we should do our part. Sensibly approach this issue, to show that it’s not us that is slowing down the process,” said Zelenskyy, speaking to a small group of journalists, including the Guardian, in his office at the presidential administration in Kyiv.Read the full storyRFK Jr and his grandchildren swam in DC creek contaminated by sewageThe US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has revealed that he went swimming with his children in a Washington DC creek that authorities have said is toxic due to contamination by an upstream, aging sewer system.The “Make America healthy again” crusader attracted attention for the Mother’s Day dip in Dumbarton Oaks Park with his grandchildren Bobcat and Cassius, which he posted about on X. He was also accompanied by relatives Amaryllis, Bobby, Kick and Jackson.Read the full storyHarvard hit with $450m more in cuts Eight federal agencies will terminate a further $450m in grants to Harvard University, the Trump administration announced on Tuesday, escalating its antagonization of the elite institution over what officials frame as inadequate responses to antisemitism on campus. The latest cuts follow a $2.2bn freeze, bringing total federal penalties against Harvard to $2.65bn.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

    The pace of inflation slowed in April, the month that Donald Trump announced his sweeping “liberation day” tariffs on the US’s largest trading partners. The annual inflation rate was 2.3% in April, down from an annual rate of 2.4% March, according to a new inflation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    Stars of Trump’s Make America great again movement are speaking out in unambiguous terms against the plan for him to be donated a jet described as a “palace in the sky” and convert it into Air Force One
    Catching up? Here’s what happened on 12 May 2025. More

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    US and Saudi Arabia sign $142bn arms deal as Trump to meet Syrian leader

    The United States and Saudi Arabia have signed a $142bn arms deal touted by the White House as the “largest defence sales agreement in history” in the first stop of Donald Trump’s four-day diplomatic tour to the Gulf states aimed at securing big deals and spotlighting the benefits of Trump’s transactional foreign policy.During the trip, the White House also confirmed that Trump would meet with Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former rebel commander whose forces helped overthrow Bashar al-Assad in 2024. The informal meeting will be the first face-to-face meeting between a US president and a Syrian leader since 2000, when Bill Clinton met with the late leader Hafez al-Assad in Geneva.Speaking at an investment forum on Tuesday, Trump said that he planned to lift sanctions on Syria after holding talks with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. “I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,” Trump said.Sharaa’s pitch to woo the US president offered access to Syrian oil, reconstruction contracts and to build a Trump Tower in Damascus in exchange for the lifting of US sanctions on Syria.Though the details of the sanctions relief were still unclear, Sharaa’s team in Damascus was celebrating. “This is amazing, it worked,” said Radwan Ziadeh, a Syrian writer and activist who is close to the Syrian president. He shared a picture of an initial mockup of Trump Tower Damascus. “This is how you win his heart and mind,” he said, noting that Sharaa would probably show Trump the design during their meeting in Riyadh on Wednesday.The visit was heavily focused on business interests and securing quick wins – often with characteristic Trumpian embellishment – for the administration. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed pledged to invest $600bn in the United States during a lunch with Trump, including $20bn in artificial intelligence data centres, purchases of gas turbines and other energy equipment worth $14.2bn, nearly $5bn in Boeing 737-8 jets, and other deals.But details of the specific commitments remained vague, the numbers put out by the White House did not total $600bn, and some of the programs began under Joe Biden’s administration.The White House called the arms deal the “largest defence sales agreement in history” and said that it included plans for more than a dozen US defense companies to sell weapons, equipment and services in the areas of air force advancement and space capabilities, air and missile defense, as well as border and maritime security.The US president was feted with a royal guard as he arrived in Riyadh on Tuesday. Royal Saudi Air Force F-15s escorted Trump’s Air Force One jet as it arrived in Riyadh and Trump sat with Salman in an ornate hall at the Royal Court at Al Yamamah Palace with members of the US and Saudi and business elite. Among them were Elon Musk, prominent figures in AI such as Sam Altman, as well the chief executives of IBM, BlackRock, Citigroup, Palantir and Nvidia, among others.When Salman pledged that Saudi Arabia would invest $600bn in the US economy, Trump smiled and joked that it should be $1tn.The trip is part of a reordering of Middle Eastern politics dominated by Trump’s “America first” platform of prioritising domestic US economic and security interests over foreign alliances and international law. Critics have said that the dealmaking empowers Trump and a coterie of businessmen around the president, and the US president’s family has business interests in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, giving this administration an unprecedented conflict of interest.The most glaring example of the new commoditisation of American foreign policy under Trump has been the proposed gift from the ruling family of Qatar of a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet that the White House said could be converted into a presidential plane and then be given to Trump’s presidential library after he leaves office.The gift has provoked anger from congressional Democrats, one of whom described it as an “aerial palace” and said it would constitute “the most valuable gift ever conferred on a president by a foreign government”.Trump has defended the offer, saying in a post it would “replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction” and called Democrats asking for an ethics investigation “World Class Losers!!!”The meeting between Trump and Salman was characterised by smiles and friendly backslapping, a sharp contrast to past summits when the Saudi leader was mired in controversy over the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.While his administration touted big deals, Trump also admitted that his geopolitical goals of Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic recognition of Israel would take time due in large part to the Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza.“It will be a special day in the Middle East, with the whole world watching, when Saudi Arabia joins us” in the Abraham accords, the Trump administration’s framework for Arab states to recognise Israel, he said. “And I really think it’s going to be something special – but you’ll do it in your own time.”Trump is also due to visit the United Arab Emirates on Thursday before continuing on to Qatar this week.His negotiations in the region have been characterised by big-ticket investment deals, and those appeared to play a role in his reversal of US policy on Syria as well.Sharaa, who is keen to normalise relations with the US, has reportedly offered Trump a number of sweeteners including the Trump tower in Damascus, a demilitarised zone by the Golan Heights that would strengthen Israel’s claim to the territory it has occupied since 1967, diplomatic recognition of Israel, and a profit-sharing deal on resources similar to the Ukraine minerals deal.The idea to offer Trump a piece of real estate with his name on it in the heart of Damascus was thought up by a US Republican senator, who passed on the idea to Sharaa’s team.“Sanctions in Syria are very complicated, but with Trump, he can [get] most of them lifted. It is a great opportunity,” Ziadeh said.The trip is also extraordinary for Trump’s decision not to visit Israel, the US’s closest ally in the region, due to the war in Gaza and Trump’s fraught relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu. Hamas released the last remaining American hostage, Edan Alexander, on the eve of Trump’s visit to the Middle East, in an effort to push Trump to pressure Netanyahu to end the war.Netanyahu doubled down on the war on Tuesday in a show of defiance, saying that any ceasefire would only be “temporary”.“In the coming days, we will enter with full force to complete the operation to defeat Hamas,” he said. “Our forces are there now.”“There will be no situation where we stop the war,” he added. More

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    Why Saudi Arabia Rolled Out a Lavender Carpet for Trump’s Visit

    In recent years, Saudi Arabia has swapped red carpets for lavender, a symbolic color for the kingdom that celebrates national identity.No, don’t call it purple. When President Trump disembarked from Air Force One in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, he stepped onto the rich lavender-colored carpet unfurled before him, just one feature of the lavish welcome extended to the visiting American leader on the first day of his Gulf tour.Along with a fighter-jet escort in the air and riders on Arabian horses on the ground, the lavender carpet is one of the distinctive and symbolic Saudi protocols for greeting high-profile dignitaries. Saudi Arabia swapped red carpets for lavender in 2021, as the ruling royal family sought to define its own protocols and celebrate national identity, according to a report by the official Saudi Press Agency published at the time.“Lavender in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is associated with blossoming wildflowers that carpet the kingdom’s desert landscapes in the spring and is a symbol of Saudi generosity,” the report said. In spring, Saudi Arabia’s rugged dunes are covered in lavender, basil and Germander, a flowering shrub that grows across the Arabian Peninsula, also known by the Arabic name “Aihan.”The color of the carpet is also a nod to how the blooms transform an otherwise harsh desert landscape, the report said, symbolizing the growth that Prince Mohammed has promised to generate through his blueprint to diversify the economy of the oil-dependent kingdom, called “Vision 2030.”The carpet features a border of the traditional Al Sadu textile design created by Bedouin women. The geometric patterns, tightly woven on a hand loom, were included on a list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity compiled by the United Nations cultural agency, UNESCO, in 2020.Saudi Arabia first rolled out a lavender carpet in 2021, for Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, a key Saudi partner in the Gulf, according to the Saudi Press Agency. The carpet is also used for state receptions and other official occasions. More

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    Donald Trump lands in Saudi Arabia as Gulf visit to seek economic deals begins – US politics live

    US President Donald Trump has arrived in Saudi Arabia to kick off a four-day tour through the Gulf region, focusing on economic deals rather than the security crises ranging from war in Gaza to the threat of escalation over Iran’s nuclear programme.Tesla CEO and Trump adviser Elon Musk, as well as business leaders including BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser are travelling with the president.Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth are also among those on the trip.Trump will first visit Riyadh, site of a Saudi-US Investment Forum, heading to Qatar on Wednesday and the United Arab Emirates on Thursday.During the Riyadh stop, Trump is expected to offer Saudi Arabia an arms package worth well over $100 billion, sources told Reuters, which could include a range of advanced weapons, including C-130 transport aircraft.In other developments:

    Trump has pushed back on criticism for accepting the gift of a $400m (£303m) plane from Qatar’s royal family to replace Air Force One. He claimed it would be “stupid” not to accept the gift. He has said it is “a very public and transparent transaction”.
    Footage shows President Trump speaking with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the Royal Court’s blue room, where he is meeting and greeting officials.President Trump has just arrived at the Royal Court in Riyadh.More on what we could expect from Trump’s tour of the Middle East.The US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE are expected to announce investments that could run into the trillions, Reuters reports.Saudi Arabia already committed in January to $600bn in investments in the US over the next four years, but Trump has said he will ask for a full trillion.Trump is expected to offer Saudi Arabia an arms package worth more than $100bn, sources told Reuters.Reuters has been reporting from the Saudi-US Investment Forum in Riyadh.It said the event began with a video showing soaring eagles and falcons, celebrating the long history between the United States and the kingdom.Larry Fink, the CEO of Blackrock, Stephen A Schwartzman, CEO of Blackstone, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al Jadaan and Khalid were all present.Speaking at a forum panel, Fink said he had visited Saudi Arabia more than 65 times over 20 years. He said the kingdom had been a follower when he first started visiting but was now “taking control” and broadening its economy out of its oil base.Top Democrats in the US Senate are pushing for a vote on the floor of the chamber censuring Donald Trump’s reported plan to accept a $400m luxury jet from the royal family of Qatar for use as Air Force One and later as a fixture in the Trump’s personal presidential library.Four Democratic members of the Senate foreign relations committee said on Monday that they would press for a vote later this week. They said that elected officials, including the president, were not allowed to accept large gifts from foreign governments unless authorised to do so by Congress.Cory Booker from New Jersey, Brian Schatz from Hawaii, Chris Coons from Delaware and Chris Murphy from Connecticut cast the reported gift of the Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a clear conflict of interest and a serious threat to national security.“Air Force Once is more than just a plane – it’s a symbol of the presidency and of the United States itself,” the senators said in a joint statement. “No one should use public service for personal gain through foreign gifts.”News of a possible gift of the luxury jet prompted immediate scathing criticism from senior Democrats. Though the Qatari government has stressed that no final decision has yet been made, Trump appeared to confirm it on Sunday when he commented on social media that the transfer was being made “in a very public and transparent transaction”.Read the full report here:President Trump was joined by US secretary of state Marco Rubio at the meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh.US President Donald Trump is also expected to be feted by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a formal dinner and a gathering of members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, later on Tuesday, the Associated Press reports.President Trump spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a coffee ceremony at the Royal Terminal of King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.US President Donald Trump has arrived in Saudi Arabia to kick off a four-day tour through the Gulf region, focusing on economic deals rather than the security crises ranging from war in Gaza to the threat of escalation over Iran’s nuclear programme.Tesla CEO and Trump adviser Elon Musk, as well as business leaders including BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser are travelling with the president.Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth are also among those on the trip.Trump will first visit Riyadh, site of a Saudi-US Investment Forum, heading to Qatar on Wednesday and the United Arab Emirates on Thursday.During the Riyadh stop, Trump is expected to offer Saudi Arabia an arms package worth well over $100 billion, sources told Reuters, which could include a range of advanced weapons, including C-130 transport aircraft.In other developments:

    Trump has pushed back on criticism for accepting the gift of a $400m (£303m) plane from Qatar’s royal family to replace Air Force One. He claimed it would be “stupid” not to accept the gift. He has said it is “a very public and transparent transaction”. More

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    Trump to embark on Middle East trip to meet Gulf allies

    Donald Trump this week will embark on the first foreign trip of his second administration with a tour of the Middle East, as he looks to secure investment, trade and technology deals from friendly leaders with deep pockets amid turbulent negotiations around numerous regional conflicts, including Israel’s war in Gaza.The tour through the Middle East is largely a repeat of his first international trip in 2017, when he was feted in the region as a transactional leader eager to secure quick wins and capable of providing support for the regional monarchies’ economic and geopolitical interests.His negotiations in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will focus on a number of topics, including oil and trade, investment deals, the regional conflicts in Israel-Gaza and Yemen, and negotiations over the Iran nuclear programme among other issues.But Trump’s key goal is to come out of the region saying that he put America first, say observers.“I think what he’s clearly looking to get out of this is deals, the announcement of multiple multi-billion dollar deals,” said Steven A Cook, the senior fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.“The president’s approach to foreign policy is heavily influenced by … his version of economic statecraft, which is to look towards the wealthy states in the Gulf and their very large sovereign wealth funds as sources of investment in the United States,” he said.Trump has already announced Saudi Arabia’s commitment to invest $1tn into the US economy and is hoping to secure big-ticket investments on Monday’s visit. That would be consistent with his America First policy of prioritising domestic interests, Cook said.Those countries may also seek access to advanced US semiconductor exports, and Saudi Arabia will want to ink a deal on civilian nuclear infrastructure, which had previously been tied to the country’s normalisation of relations with Israel. In a departure from previous policy, the Trump administration has indicated the two issues are no longer linked.The Middle East trip is notable for the US president’s lack of plans to visit Israel, where Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet have floated plans to launch a larger invasion of Gaza and expel the Palestinian population there in what critics have called a broad plan of ethnic cleansing.The Israel-Gaza war will loom large over the negotiations, as Saudi Arabia has said it will not normalise relations with Israel unless there is a clear path to a two-state solution, and many countries in the Middle East have spoken out against a proposal that began with Trump to expel Palestinian from Gaza to other Arab countries.“He could have gone to Israel like he did last time,” said Elliot Abrams, former deputy national security advisor under President George W Bush and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He added that Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, had cancelled a planned trip to Israel. “I think there’s some tension here … [Israel] knows that Trump is going to be spending a week in the Gulf hearing about Gaza, Gaza, Gaza, Gaza every day. So it’s not the best moment in US-Israel or Trump-Israel relations.”There is a growing understanding in Washington and Israel that Trump has taken a step back from attempting to mediate the war in Gaza. His administration said that they would negotiate a new aid deal without the direct involvement of the Israeli government to renew deliveries of aid into Gaza, which is suffering its worst humanitarian crisis of the war since a ceasefire collapsed in March.“He’s the only one who speaks the same language as Netanyahu, and he’s the only one who can speak to Netanyahu in a language that Netanyahu will understand,” said Ami Ayalon, a former director of the Israel Security Agency, also known as the Shin Bet.“Trump again, when it comes to to the hostages, when it comes to our relations in the Palestinians, has become the center of everything in the Middle East,” he said.That turns Trump’s attention to the things he can get done.He has said that he plans to decide on his trip to Saudi Arabia on an announcement that the US could refer to the Arabian Gulf or the Gulf of Arabia rather than the Persian Gulf.That has angered Iran at a moment when the Gulf states appear largely in support of US efforts in talks on the future of the Iranian nuclear programme. As opposed to 2017, the Gulf states have largely spoken in support of renewed negotiations between the United States and Iran over the nuclear programme, but those governments were said to be unclear on the details of any deal as of yet.“US partners have confided to me that there are US statements on all of these issues, but they don’t yet see US policies,” said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at CSIS, a thinktank. “The US government doesn’t speak with one voice and its actions remain uncoordinated.”In Saudi Arabia, Trump has enlisted his son-in-law Jared Kushner to act as a point man for the discussions ahead of the trip, CNN has reported. Kushner, who was Trump’s envoy to the region during his first administration, is said to be tasked with making progress in discussions of Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham accords. But his role is also tainted by a perceived conflict-of-interest given his family’s business interests in the region.Yet with such a complicated tableau of economic and geopolitical interests in the region, there are questions about whether the Trump administration has the focus and the team to pursue a comprehensive policy in the region. Many in Trump’s orbit say that US policy should place lower priority on the Middle East, and focus instead on China and the Indo-Pacific region.“I think the sense that there’s these pieces that the President is negotiating don’t respond together, and that his priority really is essentially domestic focus, securing, you know, agreements to invest in the estates,” said Cook. “Regionally, the president would like these issues to go away, and that’s why he has these compressed timelines he doesn’t want to focus on.” More

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    Why Saudi Arabia Supports Trump’s Nuclear Talks With Its Rival, Iran

    The agreements are shaping up to be very similar. But Gulf support for a nuclear deal shows how much the region has changed.Ten years ago, when former President Barack Obama and other leaders reached a deal with Iran to limit its nuclear program, Saudi Arabia was dismayed.Saudi officials called it a “weak deal” that had only emboldened the kingdom’s regional rival, Iran. They cheered when President Trump withdrew from the agreement a few years later.Now, as a second Trump administration negotiates with Iran on a deal that might have very similar contours to the previous one, the view from Saudi Arabia looks quite different.The kingdom’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement recently saying that it hoped the talks, mediated by neighboring Oman, would enhance “peace in the region and the world.”Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman even dispatched his brother, the defense minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, to Tehran, where he was received warmly by Iranian officials dressed in military regalia. He then hand-delivered a letter to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a man whom Prince Mohammed once derided as making “Hitler look good.”What changed? Relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran have warmed over the past decade. As important, Saudi Arabia is in the middle of an economic diversification program intended to transform the kingdom from being overly dependent on oil into a business, technology and tourism hub. The prospect of Iranian drones and missiles flying over Saudi Arabia because of regional tensions poses a serious threat to that plan.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More