Trump Charts A New Course with the Saudis

_WHAT’S HAPPENING_

While in Riyadh during the first stop of his Middle East tour, President Donald Trump secured a $600 billion investment commitment from Saudi Arabia and a $142 billion arms deal.

These mark a major leap forward in US-Saudi relations and serve as a counterbalance to Iran as it strives for regional dominance.

Beyond the deals, however, President Trump delivered a historic speech that broke sharply with a traditional Republican approach to foreign policy. In the speech, Trump criticized "nation builders" who "wrecked far more nations than they built,” calling out the GOP leadership of recent decades for entangling America in Iraq and Afghanistan.

_THE FACTS_

• The $600 billion investment package includes tens of billions for AI data centers and energy infrastructure.

• Google, Oracle, Salesforce, AMD, and Uber are committing $80 billion to “transformative technologies” in both nations.

• US firms like Hill International and AECOM will build $2 billion in infrastructure projects in Saudi Arabia.

• A separate $142 billion defense agreement, described as the largest ever, is at the heart of the deal.

• The defense deal covers air, space, missile defense, maritime security, and Saudi land force modernization.

• It is expected to provide advanced US military tech and create thousands of American defense jobs.

• Trump’s speech condemned Western nation-building failures, praising local developments instead.

• The president rebuked past American leadership, remarking that “the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called ‘nation builders,’ neocons, or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Baghdad — so many other cities.”

• In a subtle dig at President George W. Bush, Trump declared, “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 US policy to dispense justice for their sins.”

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