Trump’s Middle East Visit And US-Gulf Investments (image-X/KSAmofaEN)
United States President Donald Trump has begun his Middle East tour by arriving in Riyadh today. During the three-day trip, he has planned to travel to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, aiming to secure economic agreements with the rich Arab nations.
Yet another peculiarity of the tour is that Trump became the first US president to make the Middle East his first international destination, breaking the tradition of visiting the neighbouring North American countries first.
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In 2017, during his first tenure at the White House, he had visited Saudi Arabia from May 20 to 22. He, at that time, took part in the Riyadh summit and made defence ties and even secured substantial arms deals at that time. He had signed a $110 billion arms deal, which included missile defence systems, tanks, combat ships, and cybersecurity technology, with the intent of buying $350 billion worth of arms over 10 years.
Trump himself, ahead of the tour, had revealed that the aim is expediting investments by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE.
The US is the biggest exporter of arms globally, including to the GCC countries. Qatar and Saudi Arabia each accounted for 6.8% of global arms imports, making them the third- and fourth-largest importers respectively, while the UAE ranked 11th with 2.6% of the global share.
As per the latest data from the US Department of Commerce, the total stock of US foreign direct investment (FDI) in Saudi Arabia reached $11.3bn in 2023. While Saudi’s FDI stock in the US stood at $9.6 billion, which was mostly in transport, real estate, plastic, automotive, financial services, and communications, reports Al Jazeera.
In Qatar, the total stock of FDI was estimated to be $2.5bn in 2023. According to the US-Qatar Business Council, the FDIs were focused on the fields of energy, petrochemical, construction, engineering, and communication technology. Meanwhile, in the US, the Qatari FDI stock reached $3.3bn in 2023, as the investment concentrated in financial services, energy, and real estate.
In the UAE, the US FDI has reached $16.1bn in 2023, and it was mainly focused on manufacturing, finance and insurance, construction, and wholesale and retail trade sectors. While the UAE’s FDI stock in the US totalled $35 billion in 2023 in financial services, transport, food and beverage, aerospace, and business services.
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Recently, when UAE National Security Advisor Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan met Trump, both nations had committed $1.4 trillion in investments to the US over 10 years in sectors such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, energy, and manufacturing.
