Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, has pledged to invest $600 billion in the United States over the next four years, following comments by newly-elected President Donald Trump that he may visit the Gulf Kingdom if such a payment was made.
According to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) on Thursday, Saudi Crown Prince Bin Salman held a phone call with US President Trump upon his recent re-election and inauguration, in which the Crown Prince said Riyadh will pump $600 billion worth of investment into the US.
The reported pledge came after Trump revealed that his 2017 trip to Saudi Arabia – the first trip of his first presidential term – was due to the Kingdom’s payment of hundreds of billions of dollars, even at the cost of breaking the long-held US tradition of a president’s first trip being to the United Kingdom.
“The first foreign trip typically has been with the UK, but … I did it with Saudi Arabia last time because they agreed to buy $450 billion worth of our products,” Trump told journalists in the Oval Office after his inauguration on Monday. “If Saudi Arabia wanted to buy another $450 billion or $500 – we’ll up it for all the inflation – I think I’d probably go.”
The significant Saudi investments, the details of which have not yet been revealed, could potentially lead President Trump to make another trip to Riyadh as his first official visit, at a time when relations between the US and the Gulf states are at a pivotal point.
Trump’s second term begins: Foreign policy for the American Imperium