The administration of United States President Donald Trump says that Saudi Arabia will invest $600bn in the United States, including through technology partnerships and a weapons sales agreement worth $142bn.
A fact sheet shared by the White House on Tuesday explains that the agreement, which also includes collaboration in areas such as energy and mineral development, is the largest-ever weapons sale between the two countries.
“The deals celebrated today are historic and transformative for both countries and represent a new golden era of partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia,” the fact sheet reads.
The pact represents a deepening of economic and military ties between the two countries, a trend that has continued for decades under both Republican and Democratic US presidents.
Trump was in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Tuesday as part of a Middle East tour, marking the first major international trip of his second term as president. Later in the week, he is expected to make stops in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
But already, the trip has renewed criticisms that Trump may use the diplomatic outing to advance personal interests.
The proposed transfer of a $400m luxury aeroplane, for instance, from Qatar to the US Department of Defence has raised questions in the US about the ethics and constitutionality of accepting gifts from foreign governments.
During his first term as president, in 2017, Trump likewise included Saudi Arabia on his first major trip abroad, a voyage that similarly culminated in a multibillion-dollar arms deal.
But the global outcry over the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a consulate in Istanbul briefly threatened to upend the relationship. The US government has alleged that forces linked to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman were responsible for the killing.
Tuesday’s agreement is designed to help modernise the Saudi military with “state-of-the-art warfighting equipment and services from over a dozen US defense firms”, according to the White House fact sheet.
“The first key component of this is upgrading the defence capabilities of Saudi Arabia,” Al Jazeera correspondent Hashem Ahelbarra reported from Riyadh.
“This is a country that has been trying to invest vast amounts of money over the last few years” in its military, he added.
But the newly minted deal is not limited to security cooperation. The agreement also lays out a plan in which Saudi Arabia will invest $20bn in energy infrastructure and data centres for artificial intelligence in the US, a significant infusion of cash into industries with close ties to the Trump administration.
In both areas, US companies stand to reap a potential windfall.
“Saudi Arabia wants to become one of the top global investors in artificial intelligence, and that’s why you see many tech CEOs here in Riyadh, who are looking forward to getting some of those contracts,” said Ahelbarra.
The deal also includes references to collaboration on energy infrastructure and mineral investments, without offering many details.
Various US administrations, including during Trump’s first term in office, have used the inducement of greater collaboration on security and arms sales to push Saudi Arabia to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel.
The two countries have never had formal diplomatic ties. But during Trump’s first term, the Republican leader initiated a series of agreements known as the Abraham Accords to boost ties between Israel and various Middle East states.
Countries like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan agreed to recognise Israel as part of the agreements. But Saudi Arabia has been a holdout — and normalising ties between it and Israel could be seen as a crowning achievement for the second Trump administration.
Israel’s war in Gaza, however, has complicated those efforts. United Nations experts have warned that Israel’s actions in Gaza were consistent with genocide, and South Africa has accused Israel of genocide before the International Court of Justice.
The International Criminal Court, meanwhile, has issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant over accusations of war crimes.
The spiralling death toll in Gaza and allegations of human rights abuses have caused outrage in the region and hardened Riyadh’s insistence that normalisation should come only as part of a wider agreement on a Palestinian state, a move Israel is not willing to consider.
