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President Trump outlines ambitious economic agenda at Davos
President Donald Trump told the World Economic Forum that America has entered its “golden age” during a virtual speech.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s first conversation with a foreign head of state since taking office was with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, a country with which Trump and his family have significant current — and pending — business interests.
The two leaders discussed efforts to bring stability to the Middle East, strengthen regional security and combat terrorism and economic development. They also talked about Saudi Arabia’s “international economic ambitions over the next four years as well as trade and other opportunities to increase mutual prosperity” between the United States and the oil-rich kingdom.
It is according to a White House reading of the callwhich took place on Wednesday, Trump’s second full day in office.
Left unmentioned in the very brief official announcement was whether Trump and bin Salman discussed the Trump family’s business ventures in Saudi Arabia — including real estate potentially worth billions of dollars – or their mutual interest in the Trump-backed, Saudi-funded LIV Golf tour.
Watchdog groups contacted by USA TODAY said they are concerned the call suggests Trump may seek to use his vast new political power and influence to help the Trump Organization and its sprawling business empire.
The White House, the Trump Organization and the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment on whether Trump’s overtures to the Saudi leader could create the impression of a potential conflict of interest.
The Trump Organization — Trump’s main business vehicle for a global network of real estate and other projects — recently pledged that during Trump’s second term, “the Company will not enter into any new material transactions or contracts with a foreign government.”
But the new plan does not prohibit deals between the Trump Organization and foreign companies, as had been the case in the first Trump administration.
A continuation of a long-term relationship
Trump supporters say Trump’s first call to MBS, as the de facto Saudi leader is known, is a continuation of the close relationship they had during Trump’s first term. The former and now current president has openly praised the wealthy Saudi leader for his global geopolitical – and private business – ambitions.
So has Trump’s son-in-law and former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, who received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia for his new private investment firm shortly after leaving office in 2021 and remains in close contact with bin Salman.
For his part, Trump says his revived political partnership with bin Salman could clearly prove a boon for the US economy.
During Wednesday’s call, the crown prince told Trump that he would invest $600 billion in the United States over four years, according to a readout provided by the Saudi government. On Thursday, Trump said he would push for even more from bin Salman in virtual remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“I want to ask the Crown Prince, who is a great guyto round it out to about $1 trillion,” Trump said by video call. “I think they will because we’ve been very good to them.”
Trump is not the only president accommodating the Saudis − and the prince
Trump has cultivated personal relationships with many foreign leaders, including those in countries where he has no business interests. And most other US presidents have sought close ties to Saudi Arabia since oil became first discovered there in 1938 because of its strategic importance to the United States and the region.
During his first term, Trump visited Riyadh on his first trip abroad, breaking a tradition of many recent US presidents en route to key ally the United Kingdom as their first stop abroad. That trip in May 2017 raised eyebrows among watchdog groups that said it underscored the Trump administration’s ties to rulers of several oil-rich Gulf nations at the same time, his Trump Organization pursued property deals throughout the region.
But the trip also signaled that Trump hoped to improve politically strained US relations with Saudi Arabia under the Obama administration, according to press releases then.
Washington’s relationship with Saudi Arabia was mixed during the Biden administration, with President Joe Biden saying he wanted to make bin Salman and his royal family a “pariah” for the government’s assassination and mutilation of US-Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. US intelligence officials say MBS bin Salman personally approved the attack, which took place on a Saudi consulate in Turkey in 2018.
In July 2022, Biden was criticized for visiting Saudi Arabia and punching MBS. Three months later, Salman publicly rejected Biden in 2022 when the OPEC+ alliance of oil-exporting nations decided to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day, raising US gas prices.
In his Davos speech on Thursday, Trump said he would ask Riyadh and OPEC, or the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, to bring down oil prices.
“You have to bring it down, which frankly I’m surprised they didn’t do before the election. It didn’t show a lot of love that they didn’t,” he said. “I was kind of surprised by that. If the price went down, the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately. Right now, the price is high enough that that war will continue. You have to bring the price of oil down.”
‘Disturbing’ that Trump’s first call was to the Saudi crown prince
Noah Bookbinder, president of the nonprofit watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said it was “disturbing that Donald Trump’s first call to a foreign leader was to the leader of Saudi Arabia.”
Trump Organization projects could benefit significantly from friendly government officials in Riyadh, and the kingdom could benefit from Trump in return, Bookbinder and other watchdogs said, including more favorable foreign policy moves and lucrative arms contracts.
Decisions made by those governments regarding Trump’s properties may be swayed by their desire to curry favor with the president, creating the perception — or reality — of undue influence, they say. And Trump may be under pressure, consciously or unconsciously, they add, to prioritize the interests of countries in which he has business investments over the broader national interest.
“In his first administration, Saudi Arabia brought significant business to Trump properties, and Trump in return made policy decisions beneficial to the country, including apparently looking the other way on the Saudi government’s killing” of Khashoggi.
Trump told journalist Bob Woodward that he protected Saudi Arabia from the consequences of Khashoggi’s murder and blessed a sale of 110 billion dollars of American weapons to Riyadh.
Doug Heye, a prominent Republican political strategist and former White House and congressional staffer, said Trump is smart to embrace the Saudi leader given its rising power on the global stage.
“I think that’s a fact,” Heye told USA TODAY on Friday. “Good or bad, we’ve seen a lot of people do that. And Trump, being openly transactional, it’s very easy to see why he’s doing this.”
Just because Trump can personally benefit from the relationship doesn’t mean it can also be good for America and its national interests, Heye said, noting Trump’s claim to try to get an additional $400 million from bin Salman, up from the $600 million dollars he promised in future Saudi investments in the United States
“Those two things go hand in hand with Trump,” Heye said. “You can’t separate them. They are two sides of the same coin.”
Last July, CREW released a report saying so Trump earned up to $160 million in all from companies abroad while he was in office, much of it related to Saudi Arabia. And one congressional oversight committee report in January 2024 said millions of dollars poured in to the Trump Organization from governments such as Saudi Arabia, China and the United Arab Emirates.
This time, Bookbinder told USA TODAY, Trump has even more business ties to Saudi Arabia, “with a Saudi-backed LIV golf tournament coming to one of his properties, a new real estate development in Saudi Arabia and the involvement of Saudi companies in other developments, among other things.”
Several of Trump’s golf courses has hosted events for LIVan alternative to the PGA Tour, including three in 2023 – Trump National Golf Club, Washington DCTrump National Golf Club in BedminsterNJ and Trump National Doral in Miami. Another LIV tournament is set for early April at Doral.
“That he then gave Saudi Arabia credit for being the first country he reached out to suggests that all this business investment in Trump may pay off politically for Saudi Arabia,” Bookbinder added.
Just a few weeks before Trump returned to the White House and his new ethics pledge took effect, The Trump Organization announced that it had leased its brand to two new real estate projects in Saudi Arabia. Eric Trump, who oversees the Trump Organization’s real estate interests, said that project follows “the remarkable success” of a massive golf resort in neighboring Oman and other recent ventures in Dubai and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
“I have no interaction with Washington, DC, I want no interaction with Washington, DC,” Eric Trump said when asked about potential conflicts of interest.
A person close to Kushner told USA TODAY last July that he did not violate any laws or ethics policies while in government and that the Saudis invested $2 billion in his Affinity Partners investment fund because they trusted and respected him based on previous trades.
Still, Trump’s call for MBS — and other actions like the pre-inauguration of real estate deals — is a warning sign that Trump could “take advantage of the deals he’s already made,” Danielle Brian, executive director and president of the Washington-based Project on government oversight, told USA TODAY.
“I think it’s worth noting that there is no meaningful distinction between government and business in Saudi Arabia,” she said, when it comes to the Trump Organization doing projects there.