• PREZ: SAUDI DEAL MEANS JOBS,
President Trump arrived to a royal welcome in Saudi Arabia yesterday, where he rewarded his Saudi hosts with a $110 billion arms deal aimed at bolstering Saudi security and a slew of other business agreements.
Trump spent most of his first day abroad shuttling between opulent palace ballrooms with Saudi King Salman after the two leaders signed a series of agreements cementing their countries’ military and economic partnerships.
The agreements also include a military sales deal of about $110 billion, effective immediately, plus another $350 billion over the next 10 years.
The military package includes tanks, combat ships, missile defense systems, radar and communications, and cybersecurity technology.
Although he was largely kept away from reporters during a busy day of meetings and ceremonies in Ryadh, Saudi Arabia, Trump said deals the U.S. government and private sector reached would lead to “tremendous investments” in the United States.
He also said the deals will create “jobs, jobs, jobs.”
In addition to the military deal, national oil firm Saudi Aramco said it signed $50 billion of agreements with U.S. firms. Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said deals involving all companies totaled over $200 billion, many of them designed to produce things in Saudi Arabia that had previously been imported.
“We want foreign companies to look at Saudi Arabia as a platform for exports to other markets,” Falih said during a conference attended by dozens of U.S. executives.
GE said it reached $15 billion worth of agreements involving almost $7 billion of goods and services from GE itself. They ranged from the power and health care sectors to the oil and gas industry and mining, GE said.
Some of the deals are memorandums of understanding that would require further agreements to materialize.
Among the projects, GE will help make Saudi power generation more efficient and provide digital technology to the operations of Saudi Aramco, aiming to create $4 billion of annual productivity improvements at Aramco. It will cooperate in medical research and training.
Also yesterday, U.S. private equity firm Blackstone and Saudi Arabia’s main sovereign wealth fund announced plans to create a $40 billion vehicle to invest in infrastructure projects, mainly in the United States.
Blackstone and the Public Investment Fund signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding for the project, which will depend on further negotiations.
Blackstone said it expected the vehicle to have $40 billion of equity commitments, with a $20 billion anchor investment from the PIF with the rest from other investors. Through this equity plus debt financing, Blackstone said it expects to invest in more than $100 billion of infrastructure projects.