Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman told President Donald Trump he’s willing to expand investments and trade with the US in the coming four years by $600 billion, according to the kingdom’s state-run news agency SPA.
The crown prince, known as MBS, spoke to the American president in a congratulatory phone call on Wednesday, SPA said.
During the call, Prince Mohammed said the kingdom was eager to seize partnership and investment opportunities created by the new administration’s anticipated reforms, which could achieve “unprecedented economic prosperity.”
SPA did not provide further details or say what reforms the crown prince was talking about.
The commitment is large, even by the standards of oil-rich Saudi Arabia. It amounts to around 55% of the country’s gross domestic product.
The announcement comes at a time when the kingdom is posting fiscal deficits, in large part due to huge spending on Vision 2030, the crown prince’s plan to diversify the economy. In addition, oil prices have dropped since 2022 and, at around $80 a barrel, are roughly $10 a barrel below what’s needed for the government to balance its budget, according to the International Monetary Fund.
To bolster Vision 2030 — under which the government wants to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in everything from artificial intelligence to electric vehicles and tourism resorts — the Saudi sovereign wealth fund has outlined a plan to spend a greater portion of its money domestically.
The Public Investment Fund has said it will ramp up local spending to $70 billion annually from 2026.
Whether it comes to fruition or not, the crown prince’s announcement could help strengthen his ties with Trump.
The two leaders were close during Trump’s first term, when the president’s first overseas trip was to Saudi Arabia. Earlier this week, Trump said that was because the kingdom had agreed to a substantial investment in US goods, including weaponry.
Trump, hours after his inauguration on Monday, told reporters he’d be happy to visit Saudi Arabia again if it wanted to buy “another $450 billion or $500 billion” worth of US products.
The White House did not publish its own readout of the call between Trump and the crown prince. And it did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Bloomberg.
According to the Saudi report, the two leaders also discussed cooperation between Saudi Arabia and the US to promote peace and stability in the Middle East, and to fight terrorism.
The report did not mention Israel, with whom Saudi Arabia was close to normalizing diplomatic ties before Hamas’ attack in October 2023 triggered the war in Gaza. Trump has said he wants to ensure the two countries reach a deal at some stage.
The phone call comes amid rapid geopolitical shifts in the Middle East. Iran, Saudi Arabia’s rival in the region, has been weakened by the military degradation of Hamas and Hezbollah — two of its key proxy groups — at the hands of Israel. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, a crucial ally, was overthrown in December.
Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, also spoke to the crown prince overnight. Rubio said he looked forward to “advancing shared interests in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and beyond.”
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