The focus of this trip is the topic in which Donald Trump feels most comfortable - business deals. "This is his comfort zone. His hosts will be generous and friendly, eager to make deals", John Alterman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told ARD. "They will flatter him, they will not criticize him and they will treat his family members as former and future business partners.”
At the beginning of his first term, Trump chose Saudi Arabia as the destination of his first major foreign trip. In Riyadh in 2017, Trump spoke of investment commitments amounting to "hundreds of billions of dollars" in the United States, with the corresponding new jobs, recalls ARD. This time, the figures are claimed to be even more cosmic. Trump claims that before the trip he told the Saudis: "You got even richer, we all got older. I'll come if you pay a trillion dollars, a trillion dollars to American companies".
Arms exports and investments
These numbers should still be treated with caution, as is often the case with Trump. Studies by American media show that only a small part of the deals announced during the visit to Saudi Arabia in 2017 have become a reality.
This time, Trump will again focus on agreements for the export of American weapons to Saudi Arabia, as well as large-scale Saudi investments in the United States, but also in the Persian Gulf region, but with American companies, explains Middle East expert Dennis Ross, who is director of the Institute for Near East Studies in Washington.
Artificial intelligence and rare earth metals also have an important role
Some of the planned investments will be directed at the further development of artificial intelligence, and another part - at the extraction of minerals, including the so-called rare earth metals. Trump also wants to tie Saudi Arabia even more closely to the United States in this area to counter China's current dominance in rare earth mining, ARD explains. Many of Saudi Arabia's mining projects, however, are still in their early stages.
A few months ago, this visit to Riyadh was expected to be linked to something else important - a potential meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Such a thing is no longer on the table. It has also long been clear that Trump's goal of achieving a meaningful ceasefire in the war in Ukraine, which would be followed by peace talks, is very difficult to achieve in the short term.
The goal of normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel has also become a distant prospect. From Riyadh's perspective, this would require a final end to the war in Gaza and the prospect of a state for the Palestinians. However, Middle East expert Ross believes that Saudi Arabia is likely to press Trump to make progress in this direction. The idea would be: "We will invest billions in you if you influence Israel in our interest", the expert explains to ARD. According to Ross, the Saudis have realized what drives Trump. "If you want America to engage with your interests, that only works within an economic framework - because that's what this president values".
Author: Ralf Borchardt (ARD)