{"id":5480,"date":"2025-05-13T14:00:02","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T09:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/?p=5480"},"modified":"2025-05-13T21:33:01","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T16:33:01","slug":"trump-starts-gulf-trip-in-saudi-arabia-eyeing-deals-amid-diplomatic-offensive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/?p=5480","title":{"rendered":"Trump starts Gulf trip in Saudi Arabia eyeing deals amid diplomatic offensive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Trip marks Trump&#8217;s first major visit abroad of his second term.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Riyadh, Doha, Abu Dhabi to give Trump royal welcome.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>US president to accept luxury Boeing jet from Qatari royal family<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">United States President Donald Trump reached Saudi Arabia on Tuesday on the first leg of a Gulf tour that will also take him to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, eyeing business deals even as accords on the Middle East&#8217;s hotspots will likely be harder to reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The trip marks the US president&#8217;s first major visit abroad of his second term, with the White House saying he looked forward to a &#8220;historic return&#8221; to the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eight years ago Trump also chose Saudi Arabia for his first overseas trip as president, when he memorably posed with a glowing orb and participated in a sword dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His decision to once again bypass traditional Western allies to travel to the oil-rich Gulf states underscores their increasingly crucial geopolitical role, along with his own business relations in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Saudi fighter jets escorted Air Force One as Trump landed in the capital Riyadh. The Saudi royal family plans a lavish welcome for the 78-year-old billionaire, who will also address an investment forum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trump will take part in a summit of Gulf Arab leaders Tuesday before heading to Qatar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the days before the trip, the White House played an instrumental part in hammering out a ceasefire between India and Pakistan and holding another round of nuclear talks with Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8216;Deals&#8217;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the focus during the tour of the Gulf will likely be locking down business agreements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;White House sources have indicated that the president will focus on &#8216;deals&#8217;,&#8221; wrote Daniel B. Shapiro, a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council&#8217;s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Trump will promote a vision where &#8220;extremism is defeated in place of commerce and cultural exchanges&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Gulf states have positioned themselves as key diplomatic partners during Trump&#8217;s second term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Saudi Arabia has facilitated talks on the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Talk of returning to the kingdom has been circulating for months, with Saudi Arabia&#8217;s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman vowing to pour $600 billion into US trade and investments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I&#8217;ll be asking the crown prince, who&#8217;s a fantastic guy, to round it out to around one trillion. I think they&#8217;ll do that because we&#8217;ve been very good to them,&#8221; Trump said in response to the offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to a Saudi official close to the defence ministry, Riyadh will push for securing the latest US F-35 fighter jets along with state-of-the-art air defence systems worth billions of dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;We will condition that the deliveries take place during Trump&#8217;s term,&#8221; the source told&nbsp;<em>AFP<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Temporary &#8216;gift&#8217;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the ground in Saudi Arabia, residents expressed mixed feelings about what the trip would mean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I expect that this visit will result in political decisions that will matter to the whole region,&#8221; Khalifa Oneizi, a 47-year-old Riyadh resident, told&nbsp;<em>AFP<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Others were less confident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I am not optimistic about this visit or its results,&#8221; said Hamad Shahrani, a 62-year-old Saudi national.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Iran, meanwhile, is likely to feature prominently during the visit, following a fourth round of talks in Oman over the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Controversy is also swirling over the president&#8217;s plans to accept a luxury Boeing jet from the Qatari royal family for use as Air Force One.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Late Sunday, Trump went on the offensive amid a wave of criticism, saying the plane was a temporary &#8220;gift&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He later called the deal &#8220;a very public and transparent transaction&#8221;, and on Monday said before leaving Washington for his trip: &#8220;I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>United States President Donald Trump reached Saudi Arabia on Tuesday on the first leg of a Gulf tour that will also take him to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, eyeing business deals even as accords on the Middle East&#8217;s hotspots will likely be harder to reach. The trip marks the US president&#8217;s first major [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","inline_featured_image":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_3859443944190656_798604363342440":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5482,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5480\/revisions\/5482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakjazbo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}