Trump tries to stoke Abraham Accords by recruiting Kazakhstan

With Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman due to visit the White House this month, U.S. President Donald Trump is attempting to inject new life into the Abraham Accords.

First signed five years ago to normalize Israel’s ties with the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco, the agreement will be expanded to include the central Asian nation of Kazakhstan, whose population is mostly Muslim, Trump said on Thursday.

Posting on his Truth Social media platform, Trump said he held a three-way call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

The U.S. leader said Kazakhstan would be the first of “many” new countries to join in his second term.

Tokayev said his decision to join the accords was driven primarily by financial benefits, The New York Times reports. “We will get certain dividends from the point of view of economic cooperation,” he said.

Trump has repeatedly coaxed Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader to join the agreement and said that the issue will be on the agenda for their Nov. 18 meeting.

Prince Mohammed, who has said he would like to improve ties with Israel, more recently conditioned signing the accords on the Jewish state agreeing on a “pathway” to Palestinian statehood.

Trump takes off for Saudi Arabia to start Gulf deal-making tour

U.S. President Donald Trump departed on Monday for a Middle East tour that will take him to the glittering palaces of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, with the stated mission of generating trillions of dollars in business for American companies.

After he arrives in Riyadh on Tuesday, the President will meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who pledged in January to invest $600 billion in the U.S. over the next four years.

Trump countered that Saudi Arabia should be good for at least $1 trillion, a figure that could be unrealistic given the kingdom’s falling oil revenue and budget shortfalls.

On the sidelines of the palace meeting, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is convening a Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum that promises to bring more than 1,000 corporate executives, bankers and investors to the capital for a daylong conference modeled on the annual Future Investment Initiative conference.

The U.S. leader is also due to meet the rulers of all six Gulf states together on Wednesday for a summit hosted by Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz.

When Trump arrives in Qatar the following day, he will make a decision on whether to accept a gift offered by the royal family of a Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet that would be converted into an upgraded version of the president’s Air Force One plane.

The trip concludes in Abu Dhabi, where Trump will meet with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, along with his Cabinet ministers and prominent business figures, and work out details of the government’s pledge to invest $1.4 trillion in the U.S. over the coming decade.

Eric Trump returns to UAE to pitch crypto at Dubai conference

Eric Trump, who drew enthusiastic hoots and hollers in Abu Dhabi last December when he told the Bitcoin MENA conference that his dad would unleash the power of cryptocurrencies, returns to the UAE this week to kick off Dubai’s TOKEN2049 summit.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s 41-year-old second son promises to deliver another rousing address at the gathering, which starts on Wednesday, as crypto fever builds with the imminent issue of the UAE’s own dirham-denominated stablecoin.

ADQ, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, together with First Abu Dhabi Bank and International Holding Co., announced on Monday that the digital currency will be fully regulated by the Central Bank of the UAE to build investor confidence and lessen the uncertainty inherent to bitcoins and other blockchain-based money. No date was given for the UAE coin’s debut.

“The launch of the stablecoin marks a pivotal step in our commitment to strengthening the UAE’s digital infrastructure ecosystem,” said Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi, Managing Director and Group CEO of ADQ.

“As we move forward towards an increasingly digital and connected economy, the stablecoin will provide a solution that is secure, efficient and scalable, while creating new opportunities for growth and value creation,” he said.

Alongside Trump, the two-day TOKEN2049 event will draw top names in the crypto industry, including Binance founder Changpeng Zhao; OKX founder and CEO Star Xu; Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock’s Head of Digital Assets; and Mathew McDermott, Head of Digital Assets for Goldman Sachs.

Gulf stocks recover after Trump hits pause on new trade tariffs

Gulf stocks reversed direction in tandem with global equity markets after U.S. President Donald Trump declared a pause to his imposition of trade tariffs around the world.

Saudi Arabia’s benchmark Tadawul index rose 4% on Thursday, its biggest intraday increase in four years, Reuters reports. On Sunday, the index suffered its worst fall in almost five years following last week’s announcement of the U.S. tariffs.

Elsewhere in the region, Dubai’s main share index rebounded 2.6%, led by Emaar Properties’ 4.7% climb, while Abu Dhabi’s benchmark index rose 1.3% and Qatar stocks gained 2.1%.

Oil prices, on the other hand, continued to fall amid concerns that the U.S-China trade war will keep spiraling upward.

Trump raised the tariff rate for China – Saudi Arabia’s biggest oil customer –  to 125% on Wednesday, up from his previously announced 104% percent tariff. China, meanwhile, announced an additional tariff of 84% on U.S. imports.

Trump hosts LIV Golf in Miami, wades into PGA merger talks

U.S. President Donald Trump took a break from the political firestorm over trade tariffs to step into the fray between Saudi-backed LIV Golf and the PGA Tour.

Trump flew to Florida on Thursday for a dinner with players and league officials at the three-day LIV Golf Miami tournament, which starts today at his Doral golf resort.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, the president said he’s making efforts to resolve the stalemate that followed a framework agreement to combine their business operations two years ago.

“Ultimately, hopefully, the two tours are going to merge,” Trump said, “That’ll be good. I’m involved in that too.”

The U.S. leader has taken a role from the beginning with LIV Golf, which is owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and burst onto the pro scene in 2021 by offering contracts to PGA stars for as much as $200 million.

While Trump has previously appeared at LIV events hosted at Doral, this week would mark his first appearance as president. In his effort to bring the two golf organizations together, Trump held a Feb. 20 meeting in the Oval Office that included PGA Commissioner Jay Monahan; PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, and golfers Tiger Woods and Adam Scott.

Britain’s The Guardian reported on Thursday that merger negotiations had reached an impasse after the PGA failed to deliver “serious concessions” in exchange for a proposed $1.5 billion investment from the PIF that would make Al-Rumayyan co-chairman of the joint entity.

Gulf states find Trump tariff impact comparatively light

The threat of a global trade war set off by U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping imposition of import tariffs is leaving Gulf countries on the sidelines.

At the lowest end of the levies that Trump announced on Wednesday are Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other GCC states, which will pay 10% tariffs on goods shipped to the U.S.  – similar to what is imposed on American goods in the region.

“That means they do it to us and we do it to them,” Trump said at a White House ceremony announcing the tariffs. “Very simple.”

Other countries in the MENA region that were hit with reciprocal tariffs were Egypt and Morocco at 10%, Israel at 17%, Jordan at 20% and Tunisia at 28%.

Global financial markets were hit by a broad selloff after Trump’s announcement, with U.S. equity futures slumping as much as 4%, Bloomberg reports.

Oil prices fell by as much as 3% on worries that trade tensions could curtail economic growth and limit fuel demand.

UAE, U.S. presidents follow up on $1.4 trillion investment pledge

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed and U.S. President Donald Trump held a phone conversation to sum up a series of investment deals and high-level meetings between the two allies over the past week.

The Abu Dhabi-Washington call on Tuesday followed the announcement that the UAE will invest $1.4 trillion in the U.S. over the next decade, focusing AI infrastructure, semiconductors, energy and manufacturing.

The two presidents discussed Trump’s meeting with Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the UAE National Security Adviser and Sheikh Mohamed’s brother, who leads many of the country’s largest companies and sovereign wealth funds.

Sheikh Tahnoon talked to an array of cabinet secretaries and also held meetings with heads of the biggest tech companies, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Palantir’s Alex Karp and xAI’s Elon Musk.

Trump to address Saudi FII Summit next week in Miami

Saudi Arabia has lined up U.S. President Donald Trump to headline its annual FII Priority Summit in Miami, Fla., next week.

The kingdom’s Future Investment Initiative Institute announced on Wednesday that Trump will speak at the conference’s opening session Feb. 19 at the Faena Hotel in Miami Beach. 

Among those also scheduled to participate in the three-day event are SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, BlackRock’s Robert S. Kapito, Oracle’s Safra Catz, Point72’s Steven Cohen and Bridgewater’s Nir Bar Dea. Saudi Public Investment Fund Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan is the conference’s host.

The Miami conference will take place in the wake of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s pledge last month to invest at least $600 billion in the U.S. over the next four years. Trump responded with thanks while suggesting that the kingdom raise its investment to $1 trillion.

Florida is a center of Trump family activities, with the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach serving as the President’s home between terms in the White House. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner lives with his wife Ivanka Trump and three children on Miami’s exclusive Indian Creek Island. Kushner’s $4.6 billion private equity fund Affinity Partners, which is backed by sovereign wealth funds in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, is based in Miami.

Trump’s appearance at the conference also comes amid tension between the two countries after the President proposed that the U.S. take possession of the Gaza Strip. The plan would move some 1.8 million Palestinian residents out of the war-ravaged territory while building resort hotels that would turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and other Arab countries have condemned the Trump plan, saying any Gaza reconstruction effort must not force residents to leave.