During Trump’s tour of Gulf states in May, the US president was eager to talk about the deals he’d made and the investments he’d secured, but do the numbers add up and how many of the agreements touted were actually a result of his visit?
Published On 30 May 202530 May 2025
Tehran, Iran – Iran’s political and military leaders are pointing the finger back at Donald Trump after the United States president sharpened his rhetoric during his first major tour of the Middle East.
In a speech to a group of teachers gathered for a state ceremony in Tehran on Saturday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said some of Trump’s comments were not even worth responding to.
“The level of those remarks is so low that they are a disgrace for the one who uttered them and a disgrace to the American nation,” he said, to chants of “Death to America” and others from the crowd.
Khamenei added that Trump “lied” when he said he wants to use power towards peace, as Washington has backed “massacring” Palestinians and others across the region. He called Israel a “dangerous cancerous tumour” that must be “uprooted”.
Meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also told a gathering of navy officers on Saturday that Trump is extending a message of peace while threatening destruction at the same time as backing Israel’s “genocide” in the Gaza Strip.
“Which one of this president’s words should we believe? His message of peace, or his message of massacre of human beings?” the Iranian president said, pointing out that Trump sanctioned the International Criminal Court (ICC) in a move that was internationally criticised.
The statements came after Trump used his Middle East tour – during which he signed huge deals with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – to heap praise on Arab leaders neighbouring Iran and blasting the leadership in Tehran.
The US president told Arab leaders they were developing their infrastructure while Iran’s “landmarks are collapsing into rubble” after its theocratic establishment replaced a monarchy in a 1979 revolution.
He said Iran’s leaders have “managed to turn green farmland into dry deserts” as a result of corruption and mismanagement, and pointed out that Iranians are experiencing power outages several hours a day.
The blackouts, a result of a years-long energy crisis that is hurting Iran’s already strained economy, are expected to linger for the rest of this year as well, according to Iranian authorities.
The largest associations of the mining, steel and cement industries in Iran on Saturday wrote a joint letter to Pezeshkian, urgently requesting him to review a 90 percent electricity use restriction imposed on the critical sectors.
Trump, who hailed Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and lifted sanctions on Damascus, also took aim at Iran’s regional policy.
He described Tehran’s support for the fallen establishment of President Bashar al-Assad as a cause of “misery and death” and regional destabilisation.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the US president’s remarks as “deceptive”, telling state media on Friday it was the US that hampered Iran through sanctions and military threats while backing Israel and attacking Syria.
Parliament chief Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who was addressing an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) conference in Indonesia, said Trump’s remarks showed he was “living in a delusion”.
Hossein Salami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), addressed Trump directly on Friday and said even though Iran has beautiful landmarks, “we take pride in the elevation of character, identity, culture, and Islam”.
The sharp rhetoric in response to Trump’s latest controversial comments come days after he teased that he may start calling the “Persian Gulf” the “Arabian Gulf” soon.
This angered Iranians across the board, prompting criticism of any attempt to rename the key waterway from average citizens online, authorities, local media, and even some pro-Trump Iranians outside the country who have been advocating for US sanctions and regime change.
Both Iran and the US say they would prefer an agreement that would serve to quickly de-escalate tensions surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme, despite the latest war of words.
But after four rounds of negotiations mediated by Oman, any prospective deal – which would lift sanctions in exchange for making sure Iran would not have a nuclear bomb – still appears to face significant hurdles.
Trump said Tehran has been handed a proposal to rapidly advance towards a deal, but Iran’s Araghchi on Friday said no written proposal was produced yet amid “confusing and contradictory” rhetoric from Washington.
“Mark my words: there is no scenario in which Iran abandons its hard-earned right to enrichment for peaceful purposes: a right afforded to all other NPT signatories, too,” he wrote in a post on X, in reference to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Kazem Gharibabadi, a senior nuclear negotiator, on Friday rejected reports by Western media outlets that Iran may agree to fully halt its enrichment of uranium for the remainder of the Trump presidency to build trust.
“The right to enrich is our absolute red line! No halt to enrichment is acceptable.”
Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdrew from a landmark nuclear accord signed between Iran and world powers three years earlier, imposing the harshest sanctions yet by the US that have only intensified during the latest negotiations.
The nuclear deal set a 3.67 percent enrichment rate with first-generation centrifuges for civilian use in Iran, in exchange for lifting United Nations sanctions. Iran is now enriching up to 60 percent and has enough fissile material for multiple bombs, but has made no effort to build one yet.
United States President Donald Trump’s tour of the Middle East this week is his first international trip since he started his second term. Conspicuously absent from his itinerary, however, was Washington’s closest ally in the region: Israel.
In the US and Israeli media, the apparent snub has fuelled talk of a growing rift between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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The tit-for-tat conflict between India and Pakistan lasted only a week before a ceasefire deal was reached, but it was long enough to provide an insight into the role the media might play in a longer war.
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US President Donald Trump has concluded his three-nation tour of the Gulf region.
More than a trillion dollars worth of investments were pledged during the US president’s visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates this week.
The US is preparing to lift decades-long sanctions on Syria, and could be close to a nuclear deal with Iran.
Previous US presidents might have been expected to make a stop in Egypt, Jordan or Israel.
But notably Trump’s deal-making tour did not include those countries.
So, are the Gulf nations now in sync with the US on some of the biggest challenges in the region?
And is Trump re-shaping the Middle East or is it the Gulf states that will dictate future US foreign policy?
Presenter: Dareen Abughaida
Guests:
Giorgio Cafiero – CEO at Gulf State Analytics, a geopolitical risk consultancy
Hassan Barari – Professor of international affairs at Qatar University
Alon Pinkas – Former ambassador and consul general of Israel in New York and a columnist at the Independent
Senators accuse US President Donald Trump of engaging in ‘corruption of US foreign policy’ with defence deals.
A group of United States senators is trying to halt $3.5bn in weapons sales to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar over concerns that the deals will personally benefit the family of US President Donald Trump.
Two “resolutions of disapproval” were submitted on Thursday in the US by Democratic Senators Chris Murphy, Chris Van Hollen, Brian Schatz and Tim Kaine, along with Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who often votes with Democrats.
The legislators also issued statements accusing President Trump, who is concluding a trip to the Middle East, of actively engaging in the “corruption of US foreign policy” over the timing of the sales and recent investment deals.
The Department of State this week approved the $1.6bn sale to the UAE of Chinook helicopters and equipment, F-16 aircraft components, and spare and repair parts to support Apache, Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters. Initial reporting cited the figure as close to $1.3bn, but the $1.6bn figure was used in a statement from the legislators. The lawmakers are also seeking to block $1.9bn in sales to Qatar of MQ-9B Predator drones and associated equipment, which was approved by the State Department in March.
The legislators accuse Trump of accepting favours in exchange for the deals, citing news from April that the Emirati investment firm MGX would use a stablecoin – a cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to another asset – issued by the Trump family-backed World Liberty Financial to finance a $2bn investment in the cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
The Trump family is reported to have made millions off niche cryptocurrencies like the $TRUMP “meme coin” since the president returned to the White House in January.
I know Trump’s crypto scams can seem hard to understand. So I went the Senate floor to break down the most outrageous one.
A foreign government is investing $2 billion in Trump’s coin to get favorable treatment from the Administration. A wild corruption.
Here’s how it works. pic.twitter.com/pxLSlZH2QN
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) May 13, 2025
In addition to business dealings, the senators also expressed fears that US weapons sent to the UAE could end up in the hands of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which is allegedly backed by the UAE and has played a critical role in Sudan’s civil war.
“The US should not be delivering weapons to the UAE as it aids and abets this humanitarian disaster and gross human rights violations,” Van Hollen said, citing Sudan’s civil war.
The senators also cited Qatar’s offer of a Boeing 747 jumbo for the president’s temporary use as Air Force One. The offer has drawn criticism from both Democrats and some Republicans because it would be the most expensive foreign gift ever exchanged between a foreign government and an elected US official.
“There’s nothing Donald Trump loves more than being treated like a king, and that’s exactly why foreign governments are trying to buy his favour with a luxury jumbo jet and investments in Trump’s crypto scams,” Murphy said in a statement.
When asked about the offer of the aircraft, Trump blamed Boeing’s lack of progress in building a new Air Force One and said he would be “stupid” to refuse a free plane.
“It’s not a gift to me, it’s a gift to the Department of Defense,” he said.
It is unclear when a vote will happen on the joint “resolutions of disapproval”, but the US political news outlet The Hill said that due to the nature of the bills, Democrats will likely force them to the floor of the Senate.
US President Donald Trump hails deals during his three-country tour of the Gulf region.
United States President Donald Trump has signed several economic deals on his visit to the Gulf region.
One of the biggest deals was signed in Qatar, where Boeing secured its largest-ever order of wide-body jets from Qatar Airways.
Doha also promised to invest more than $10bn in the Al Udeid Air Base, one of the US’s biggest military facilities in the world.
Trump says he’s forging a future with the Middle East defined by commerce, not chaos. But could that mean regional stability and security are now taking a back seat?
And how likely is it that the US president would throw US weight behind ending the devastating war in Gaza?
Presenter: Dareen Abughaida
Guests:
Faisal al-Mudahka – Editor-in-chief, Gulf Times
Andreas Krieg – Senior lecturer, King’s College London’s School of Security Studies
Paul Musgrave – Associate professor of government, Georgetown University in Qatar
US president claims he has sealed deals worth $10 trillion during visits to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE.
President Donald Trump has hailed deepening ties between the United States and the United Arab Emirates and said that the latter will invest $1.4 trillion in the former’s artificial intelligence sector over the next decade.
“I have absolutely no doubt that the relationship will only get bigger and better,” Trump said on Thursday at a meeting with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, on the final leg of his three-country tour of the Gulf region that saw him strike a series of lucrative tech, business and military deals that he said amounted to $10 trillion.
Sheikh Mohammed said the UAE remained “committed to working with the United States to advance peace and stability in our region and globally”.
The deal with UAE is expected to enable the Gulf country to build data centres vital to developing artificial intelligence models. The countries did not say which AI chips could be included in UAE data centres. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had earlier been seen in conversation with Sheikh Mohamed and Trump.
The AI agreement “includes the UAE committing to invest in, build, or finance U.S. data centres that are at least as large and as powerful as those in the UAE,” the White House said.
Reporting from Doha in Qatar, Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra said such a deal had been “a national security concern” for Washington in the past. “But then they decided to change their mind under Trump, particularly when the UAE said that it was willing to invest $1.4 trillion,” he said.
Ahelbarra said the deal was a “significant step” for the UAE, positioning it as “the most important player in artificial intelligence, followed by Saudi Arabia”.
Before his departure for the UAE, Trump said in a speech to US troops at the Al Udeid Air Base southwest of Doha in Qatar that defence purchases signed by Qatar on Wednesday were worth $42bn.
Other agreements signed during Trump’s four-day swing through the Gulf include a deal for Qatar Airways to purchase up to 210 Boeing widebody jets, and a commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest $600bn in the US and to buy $142bn worth of US arms.
The tour also brought a flurry of diplomacy, with Trump saying in Qatar on Thursday that the US was getting close to securing a nuclear deal with Iran. On Tuesday, he said the US would remove longstanding sanctions on Syria.
Trump said he would probably return to Washington on Friday, although he said it was “almost destination unknown because they’ll be getting calls ‘Could you be here? Could you be there?’”
Trump had previously hinted that he could stop in Istanbul for talks on the Russia-Ukraine war.
The president of the UAE announced plans to invest $1.4 trillion in the US over the next ten years.
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United States President Donald Trump has started his Middle East tour, arriving in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, just after 10am, where he was greeted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).
During his three-day trip, he will also travel to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with a focus on securing economic agreements with three of the world’s wealthiest nations.
The trip will involve discussions on investment opportunities, and some experts say Trump may urge the Gulf countries to lower oil prices.
Trump arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday just before 10am local time (07:00 GMT), where he was greeted by MBS. The same day, he is scheduled to attend a Saudi-US investment forum featuring leading companies such as BlackRock, Citigroup, Palantir, Qualcomm, and Alphabet.
On Wednesday, he is scheduled to take part in a Gulf summit in Riyadh, before travelling to Qatar later that day. He will conclude his trip in the UAE on Thursday, May 15.
During his first term, 2017 to 2021, Trump became the first US president to make the Middle East his first international destination, breaking with the longstanding tradition of visiting neighbouring North American countries first.
His trip to Saudi Arabia from May 20 to 22, 2017 – during which he attended the Riyadh Summit – was a calculated move to bolster defence ties and secure substantial arms deals.
During that trip, Trump also visited Israel and Palestine.
While Trump did not go to Qatar or the UAE during his first term, he met Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi at the Riyadh Summit.
During the summit, Trump and Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud signed a $110bn arms deal, including missile defence systems, tanks, combat ships and cybersecurity technology, with the intent of buying $350bn worth of arms over 10 years.
A memorable moment from that 2017 trip to Saudi Arabia was during the inauguration of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology in Riyadh. In a surreal photo op that quickly went viral, Trump stood alongside King Salman and President el-Sisi with their hands on a glowing orb.
Sami al-Arian, director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Zaim University, told Al Jazeera that Trump has been very vocal about his objective in visiting the three Gulf states: investments.
Trump’s administration has reportedly discussed the possibility of expediting investments by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE before his trip to the region.
“He’s trying to get trillions of dollars out of these countries,” al-Arian told Al Jazeera.
“He’s already said that he’s hoping to get $1 trillion from Saudi Arabia in terms of arms sales and commercial deals,” he said.
According to the latest data from the US Department of Commerce, the total stock of US foreign direct investment (FDI) in Saudi Arabia reached $11.3bn in 2023.
Conversely, Saudi Arabia’s FDI stock in the US stood at $9.6bn, mostly in transport, real estate, plastics, automotive, financial services and communications, according to the Commerce Department.
These figures are only FDI, not other investments, like portfolio investments or short-term financial flows.
In 2023, the total stock of US FDI in Qatar was estimated at $2.5bn.
According to the US-Qatar Business Council, US companies that have facilitated FDIs in Qatar focused on the fields of energy, petrochemicals, construction, engineering, and communications technology.
Conversely, Qatari FDI stock in the US reached $3.3bn in 2023, with investments concentrated in financial services, energy and real estate.
In 2023, the total stock of US FDI in the UAE reached $16.1bn.
According to the Reuters news agency, in 2023, the main FDI drivers were manufacturing, finance and insurance, construction and wholesale and retail trade sectors.
Meanwhile, UAE FDI stock in the US totalled $35bn in 2023 – in financial services, transport, food and beverages, aerospace, and business services, according to the Commerce Department.
In March, UAE National Security Adviser Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan met Trump and committed $1.4 trillion in investments to the US over 10 years in sectors such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, energy and manufacturing.
The US is the biggest exporter of arms globally and a top supplier to Gulf countries.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia each accounted for 6.8 percent of the world’s total arms imports for 2020-24, making them the third and fourth largest importers globally.
The UAE is the 11th largest importer of arms, accounting for 2.6 percent of global imports for the same period.
Saudi Arabia is the main recipient of US arms, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Between 2020 and 2024, Saudi Arabia received 12 percent of the US’s total arms exports.
About 74 percent of Saudi arms imports come from the US.
Trump is poised to offer Saudi Arabia an arms package worth more than $100bn during his trip, according to Reuters.
In the 2020-24 period, the US was the top supplier of arms to Qatar, accounting for 48 percent of its imports.
In March, the US Department of State approved a large weapons package to Qatar worth $2bn, which includes long-range maritime surveillance drones and hundreds of missiles and bombs.
In the same period, the US was also the top supplier of weapons to the UAE, accounting for 42 percent of the country’s arms imports.