Trump moves on to Qatar after bounty of deals in Saudi Arabia

U.S. President Donald Trump took his Middle East dealmaking tour to Qatar today after a summit meeting in Riyadh with leaders of the six Gulf states that focused in part on promoting more investment in American military hardware and artificial intelligence.

The visit to Qatar’s capital of Doha continued to generate criticism from Democrats in Congress over Trump’s intention to accept a gift from the Qatari government of a refurbished $400 million plane that would temporarily replace Air Force One.

Arriving in the early afternoon after a short flight from Saudi Arabia, Trump landed at Hamad International Airport in Doha and was met by Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim, who was waiting on a yellow carpet to symbolize the desert peninsula’s sandy terrain.

Tomorrow, the President will meet Qatari business leaders for breakfast and greet U.S. soldiers at the Al Udeid U.S. Air Base, before taking off for the UAE.

In his two-day visit to Riyadh, Trump lavished attention on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who said he would try to meet the President’s challenge for investing $1 trillion in the U.S. over the next four years.

At a Saudi-U.S. business conference in Riyadh, Trump and MBS held court with a constellation of billionaires, including Tesla’s Elon Musk, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman and Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio.

From the Saudi business world, the conference featured Muhammad Al Jasser, Chairman of Islamic Development Bank; Nabeel Koshak, CEO of Saudi Venture Capital; Marc Winterhoff, Interim CEO of Lucid; John Pagano, Group CEO of Red Sea Global; Mohammad Abunayyan, Chairman of ACWA Power; Tony Douglas, CEO of Riyadh Air; and Jerry Inzerillo, Group CEO of Diriyah Co.

The Saudi Crown Prince wrapped up the day by bringing Trump for a tour of Diriyah, the ancestral home of the Al Saud royal family, which was led by Inzerillo. The site is undergoing a massive renovation as one of the multibillion megaprojects undertaken by the kingdom, along with the 100-mile long Neom city on the kingdom’s west coast and the Al Mukkab skyscraper cube in Riyadh.

Among the biggest issues discussed in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday was the extent to which the Trump administration would lift sanctions on AI semiconductor chips that are being eagerly sought by the Gulf states.

Nvidia, the world’s biggest semiconductor maker, agreed to supply its most advanced AI chips to Saudi Arabia’s Humain, a company created to push that country’s AI infrastructure efforts, Bloomberg reports. Humain will get “several hundred thousand” of Nvidia’s most advanced processors over the next five years, starting with 18,000 of its cutting-edge GB300 Grace Blackwell products and its InfiniBand networking technology.

Huang saw his personal net worth surge to approximately $120 billion over the day, up from $80 billion a year ago, driven by soaring demand for the company’s AI chips that has fueled a sharp rise in its stock, Reuters reports.

AMD, Nvidia’s nearest rival in AI accelerators, will provide chips and software for data centers “stretching from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the United States” in a $10 billion project, Humain and AMD said.

Also, Saudi VC firm STV launched a $100 million AI fund backed by Google to invest in MENA startups, as part of a broader set of tech-focused U.S.-Saudi agreements announced during President Trump’s visit to Riyadh, Bloomberg reports. And Saudi Arabia agreed to authorize the use of Musk’s Starlink service for aviation and maritime shipping, the SpaceX founder announced.

MBS tells Trump in Riyadh he’ll try to invest $1 trillion in U.S.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told President Donald Trump and a solid portion of the world’s business elite on Tuesday that he hopes to fulfill his pledge to invest $600 billion in the U.S. and might even hit the $1 trillion mark sought by the White House.

In turn, Trump praised MBS as a visionary leader and hailed the U.S.-Saudi alliance as a profitable enterprise for both sides as the two spoke at a business conference in Riyadh and the president kicked off a four-day swing through the Gulf that will also take him to Qatar and the UAE.

“Today we hope for investment opportunities worth $600 billion, including deals worth $300 billion that were signed during this forum,” the Saudi leader said in a speech at the capital city’s King Abdulaziz International Conference Center. “We will work in the coming months on the second phase to complete deals and raise it to $1 trillion,” he said.

A good chunk of that commitment will come from an agreement to sell Saudi Arabia an arms package worth nearly $142 billion, which the White House called “the largest defense cooperation agreement” that the U.S. has ever signed.

Trump beamed as he followed MBS onstage to address an audience that included Tesla founder Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Aramco CEO Amin Nasser, Saudi Public Investment Fund Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan and hundreds of other corporate leaders, investors and government officials from the two countries.

The President thanked MBS for setting the $1 trillion goal and talked for close to an hour about his affection for the kingdom, ticking off several of the deals signed by the two countries during the day.

“So, number one, I like visiting with you, and we’ve known each other very well, and I really believe we like each other a lot and, number two, for the United States, we’ve brought tremendous investment in and tremendous jobs, and we continue to service your great country very well,” Trump said.

The U.S. leader also said he maintains a “fervent hope” that Saudi Arabia will join the Abraham Accords to normalize relations with Israel, as the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco did in 2020, though he added, “you’ll do it in your own time.”

Earlier in the day, the Saudi Crown Prince took the unusual step of greeting Trump in person when the president landed on a flight from Washington at King Khalid International Airport outside Riyadh.

Unlike former President Joe Biden’s tense visit and cautious fist bump in 2022, MBS stood on the tarmac and patiently watched Trump descend from Air Force One onto a royal purple carpet. The two shook hands and Trump gave the prince a warm shoulder tap before they strode together to the waiting motorcade.

The greeting underlined the intentions on both sides to make Trump’s first regional trip in his second term a public success and broadcast the closeness of the U.S.-Saudi alliance.

Inside the Al-Yamamah Palace where a lavish reception and lunch were held, both leaders were accompanied by top Cabinet ministers and a roster of business leaders, with Trump’s entourage including Musk and OpenAI’s Sam Altman.

Conversations at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum – held at the same site beside the marble-lined Ritz-Carlton Hotel as the annual Future Investment Initiative conference – were focused on concrete dealmaking and illustrated the seriousness in both countries to make the most of the rare event, said Tally Zingher, Managing Director of the U.S.-headquartered boutique advisory firm Blue Laurel.

“Being here allows me to listen and observe firsthand how the Saudis are articulating their priorities and how those priorities have already manifested into concrete opportunities for U.S. companies,” Zingher told The Circuit.

Among the headliners addressing the conference were Khalid Bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih, Minister of Investment; Mohammed Al-Jadaan, Minister of Finance; Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, Minister of Energy; Bandar Alkhorayef, Minister of Industry and Minerals and Faisal Alibrahim, Minister of Economy & Planning.

The U.S. delegation was headed by Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury; Howard Lutnick, U.S. Secretary of Commerce; and David Sacks, the White House Special Advisor on AI and Crypto.

From the Saudi business world, the conference featured Muhammad Al Jasser, Chairman, Islamic Development Bank; Nabeel Koshak, CEO of Saudi Venture Capital; Marc Winterhoff, Interim CEO of Lucid; John Pagano, Group CEO of Red Sea Global; Mohammad Abunayyan, Chairman of ACWA Power; Tony Douglas, CEO of Riyadh Air and Jerry Inzerillo, Group CEO of Diriyah Co.

U.S. financiers at the forum included Citigroup’s Jane Fraser, Franklin Templeton’s Jenny Johnson, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman and Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio, LionTree’s Aryeh Bourkoff and BDT & MSD Partners’ Dina Powell McCormick.

From the U.S. tech industry, Palantir’s Alex Karp joined the forum as well as Alphabet/Google’s Ruth Porat, Amazon’s Andy Jassy, IBM’s Arvind Krishna and Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon.

With planemakers and defense contractors set to reap billions in Saudi deals, the conference featured Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg, Lockheed Martin’s Michael Williamson, Honeywell’s Ken West and Halliburton’s Jeff Miller.

Among other speakers at the summit, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is a perennial fixture at the FII conference and hosted a spinoff conference in his city last February, where Trump spoke. Also appearing was Gianni Infantino, President of world soccer’s governing FIFA organization, after Saudi Arabia was picked to host the 2034 World Cup.

The Daily Circuit: Global dealmakers back in Gulf + Acwa’s Uzbeki contract

👋 Hello from the Middle East!

In the Daily Circuit today, we’re looking at the plunge in Gulf stock prices triggered by U.S. trade tariffs, a regulatory nod for Riyadh Air’s take-off later this year, Acwa Power’s wind deal in Uzbekistan and Qatar’s Hit Show winning the $12 million Emirates Dubai World Cup horse race. But first, conference halls in Abu Dhabi and Dubai are back to business.

Investors are pouring back into the UAE after the monthlong Ramadan break as temperatures warm up and the AIM Congress kicks off the Middle East’s spring dealmaking season.

Presidents, cabinet ministers, central bank governors and CEOs took to the ADNEC Centre podium today to address some 20,000 registered participants at the global investment conference.

In opening remarks, Dr. Thani Al Zeyoudi, the UAE Minister for Foreign Trade, said the Emirati government will intensify its focus on artificial intelligence, improved infrastructure and clean energy.

“This is our investment model – to find long-term opportunities in high-potential markets and help transform them into a sustainable engine of growth,” Al Zeyoudi said.

Also appearing onstage at the opening session were Denis Sassou Nguesso, President of the Republic of the Congo, Armenian President Vahagn Garniki Khachaturyan and Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Secretary General of the Arab League.

In Dubai, meanwhile, more than 40,000 industry professionals from 90 countries are meeting at the Middle East Energy Conference in the Dubai World Trade Centre.

Welcome to the Daily Circuit. Kindly let us know your thoughts and feedback by replying to this newsletter or emailing us at [email protected].

While new U.S. trade tariffs came out at the low end for Gulf countries, benchmark stock indexes across the region plunged by the widest margins since 2020. Amid depressed oil prices and fears of a global trade war, Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All-Share Index dropped 6.1% on Sunday, with similar slides in Qatar and Kuwait. The losses continued today, with the Dubai Financial Market General Index down more than 6% and the Abu Dhabi Securities General Index slumping 4.5%. Shares of Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company, have fallen more than 7% since President Donald Trump’s announcement last week, losing some $90 million in market capitalization. The tariffs range from 10% on Gulf exports to the U.S. to 20% from countries in the European Union and 34% from China.

TAKING OFF

Riyadh Air crossed a threshold as it prepares to begin operating in 2025 as Saudi Arabia’s primary international carrier. The airline, which is owned by the Public Investment Fund, announced on Sunday that it received approval to fly from the General Authority of Civil Aviation. “Establishing an airline of this scale is a monumental task, but the process is progressing smoothly,” Saudi Minister of Transport and Logistics Saleh Al-Jasser said at a ceremony presenting the approval certificate. “We are now in the final stages, with the next step being the launch of the first flight before the end of this year.” Riyadh Air, which will take over many passenger routes from Saudia, plans connections to more than 100 international cities by 2030.

🏇 Fast Track: Qatar’s Hit Show, ridden by jockey Florent Geroux, won the $12 million Emirates Dubai World Cup horse race at Meydan Racecourse on Saturday. U.S. thoroughbred Mixto came in second place, trailed by Japan’s Forever Young, winner of the Saudi Cup in February.

📷 Photo of the Day

French President Emmanuel Macron and Egyptian President Abdel Wahab El-Sisi walk through Cairo’s Khan El-Khalili district on Sunday night at the beginning of a three-day visit.

PIF-backed Acwa Power eyes share sale

Saudi Arabia’s energy firm Acwa Power is planning to raise 7.1 billion riyals ($1.9 billion) by issuing stock to existing shareholders days after Saudi Aramco landed $11.2 billion in its own share sale.

Acwa Power, which is 44% owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, is one of the leading firms in Saudi Arabia’s decarbonization and diversification strategies.

The company is planning to double annual investments to $2.5 billion in an international push into renewables and hydrogen, as well as projects in the kingdom, Bloomberg reports.

Acwa’s shares have increased about 570% since listing on the Saudi Tadawul Exchange in October 2021.