Saudi Arabia, Syria and 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.
A British Bank of America analyst has been jailed for 10 years in Saudi Arabia apparently over a since-deleted social media post.
Trump pitched Saudi Arabia as the key to building peace and prosperity in the Middle East, contrasting the kingdom with the nuclear intransigence of Iran.
Trump met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and attended a US-Saudi investment forum along with Elon Musk and other top CEOs.
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.
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In May 2025, as U.S. President Donald Trump toured the Middle East, claims ( archived) circulated that Saudi Arabia provided a mobile McDonald's food truck for the president's visit. The claims stemmed from a video ( archived) recorded ( archived) by Mike Wagenheim, a journalist with the Israeli outlet i24NEWS.
Kirkland & Ellis chair Jon Ballis and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, a Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan of counsel, recently joined President Donald Trump at a lunch in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
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.