Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told President Trump Tuesday that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will increase its investments of $600 billion in the U.S. to near $1 trillion.
The new figure was raised by the president during bin Salman’s White House visit.
“I want to thank you because you’ve agreed to invest $600 billion into the United States, and because he’s my friend, he might make it a trillion, but I’m going to have to work on him,” Mr. Trump said during their Oval Office meeting.
Bin Salman, who goes by MBS, agreed that the figure would be close to $1 trillion.
During Mr. Trump’s first administration, the president touted $450 billion in Saudi investments in the U.S., but an economic analysis by the Arab Gulf States Institute found that exports of American goods and services to Saudi Arabia from 2017 to 2020 totaled just a fifth of that, around $92 billion.
A May 2017 defense agreement with the kingdom worth around $110 billion was supposed to take effect immediately, the White House said at the time. But according to records kept by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which oversees foreign military sales, the Defense Department formally notified Congress of roughly $23 billion in possible arms sales to Saudi Arabia between 2017 and 2020.
Bin Salman’s trip to the White House marks his first U.S. visit since Washington Post journalist and human rights activist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in 2018 in a Saudi consulate in Istanbul by members of the Saudi government. The president has smoothed over relations with the Saudis since the CIA assessed about a month after Khashoggi’s killing that the crown prince had ordered it. Bin Salman has denied any involvement, but he told CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell in a 60 Minutes interview in 2019 that he took responsibility for Khashoggi’s death, because his murder had been “committed by individuals working for the Saudi government.”
MBS was asked about Khashoggi in the Oval Office Tuesday. “About the journalist, it’s really painful to hear that anyone losing his life for no real purpose,” he said.
President Trump also said during the Oval Office meeting that “a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman [Khashoggi]” and added that “he [bin Salman] knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that.”
Mr. Trump praised the crown prince and said his record on human rights is good, despite the State Department’s list of concerns about human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia.
“We have an extremely respected man in the Oval Office today and a friend of mine for a long time, a very good friend of mine,” Mr. Trump said. “I’m very proud of the job, what he’s done is incredible in terms of human rights and everything else.”