US President Donald Trump made his first major international trip of his second term from May 13 to 16, securing a series of eye-popping deals with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates worth several trillion dollars.
In Saudi Arabia, Trump secured $600 billion in investment commitment, including a record-breaking $142 billion arms deal. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman further revealed his ambition to raise the US-Saudi partnership to $1 trillion.
In Qatar, Trump signed an agreement to generate an economic exchange worth at least $1.2 trillion, and the UAE followed with a 10-year, $1.4 trillion investment framework in the US sectors such as AI infrastructure, semiconductors and energy.
Yet beneath these dazzling figures lies a more complex and fragile reality. Much of the promised investment remains uncertain. As Steven Cook from the Council on Foreign Relations remarked, “These numbers sound impressive, but they’re often backloaded. The region is full of deals that look good on paper but never materialize.”
In recent years, Middle Eastern countries have asserted greater strategic autonomy, balancing relations with the West while strengthening ties with China, Russia, India and the Global South. Meanwhile, the US has scaled back its regional footprint and pushed for alignment on issues such as sanctions against Russia and decoupling from China — highlighting the growing divergence with its traditional partners in the Middle East. Against this backdrop, the long-term viability of these deals remains in doubt unless meaningful political progress is made.
At the same time, Gulf states face domestic fiscal pressures as they pivot toward post-oil economic transformation, making it increasingly difficult for them to allocate large sums of capital abroad. For instance, despite promising $450 billion in deals during Trump’s first term, Saudi Arabia’s actual trade and investment flows with the US from 2017 to 2020 amounted to less than $300 billion. Additionally, the latest $142 billion arms package also appears inflated — only about $13 billion represents new contracts, with the rest largely a repackaging of existing deals. Moreover, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund announced in 2024 that it would cut overseas investments by a third to prioritize domestic development. All things considered, while the announced figures reflect bold ambitions, their actual materialization remains far from certain.
Trump’s whirlwind tour reflects not only his transactional approach but also the hollowing out of US’ influence in the Middle East. The Gulf states’ “dollar diplomacy” meshed well with Trump’s deal-centered mindset. As both sides became engrossed in the illusion of booming economic deals, the region’s more pressing issues of peace and security remained unresolved.
The views are extracted from Jiuwanli (meaning 90,000 Miles) account and do not necessarily reflect those of facts.org.cn.
