US President Donald Trump said Saudi Arabia will invest $600 million in the United States, including $142 billion worth of technology partnerships and arms sales agreements.
A fact sheet shared by the White House on Tuesday explains the agreement, which also includes collaborations in areas such as energy and mineral development, is the largest arms sales ever between the two countries.
“The deals celebrated today are historic and transformative for both countries, representing a new golden age of partnerships between the US and Saudi Arabia,” the fact sheet reads.
The agreement represents the deepening of economic and military ties between the two countries. This is a trend that has been ongoing for decades under both Republican and Democrat US presidents.
Trump marked his first major international trip of his second term as president as he was in Riyadh’s Saudi capital as part of his Middle East tour on Tuesday. Later in the week, he is expected to be suspended in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
But already, the trip renews criticism that Trump may use diplomatic outings to promote personal benefits.
For example, the proposal to transfer a $400 million luxury plane from Qatar to the US Department of Defense raised questions about the ethics and constitutionality of accepting gifts from foreign governments in the United States.
During his first term as president in 2017, Trump was likewise included Saudi Arabia on his first major trip abroad.
However, global protests against the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashogji at the Istanbul consulate have threatened to temporarily overturn relations. The US government has argued that the troops associated with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohamad bin Salman are responsible for the killing.
According to the White House fact sheet, Tuesday’s agreement is designed to help modernize the Saudi military with “state-of-the-art war fighting equipment and services.”
“The first important factor of this is to upgrade Saudi Arabia’s defensive capabilities,” reported Al Jazeera correspondent Hashem Ahelbarra from Riyadh.
“This is a country that has been trying to invest huge amounts of money over the past few years,” he added.
However, newly created transactions are not limited to security cooperation. The deal will allow Saudi Arabia to invest $20 billion in US energy infrastructure and data centers for artificial intelligence, allowing cash to be injected into the Trump administration and industry closely.
In both regions, US businesses are standing to reap potential windfalls.
“Saudi Arabia wants to be one of the top global investors in artificial intelligence, so we can see many high-tech CEOs in Riyadh who are looking forward to some of these contracts,” Ahelbarra said.
The transaction also includes references to collaborations on energy infrastructure and mineral investments without providing much detail.
Various US administrations during Trump’s first term have urged Saudi Arabia to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel using the induction of greater cooperation on security and arms sales.
The two countries had no formal diplomatic relations. However, during Trump’s first term, Republican leaders launched a series of agreements known as the Abraham Union to enhance relations between Israel and various Middle Eastern states.
States like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan have agreed to recognize Israel as part of the agreement. However, Saudi Arabia was a holdout, and normalizing relations between it and Israel could be considered the best achievement of the Second Trump administration.
But Israel’s war in Gaza complicates those efforts. UN experts warn that Israel’s actions in Gaza are consistent with genocide, with South Africa warning that Israel has condemned genocide before the International Court of Justice.
Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister Joab Gallant over accusations of war crimes.
The allegations of spiral death sacrifices and human rights abuses in Gaza sparked rage in the region, reinforcing Riyadh’s claim that normalization should only come as part of the broader agreement of the Palestinian state.