President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed a “strategic economic partnership” alongside Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The partnership included a series of deals on energy, defense, mining and space-based agreements that amount to $600 billion, and “could” help create up to 2 million U.S. jobs, Trump said on Tuesday.
Roughly a dozen memorandums of understanding and letters of intent were agreed to under the new partnership.
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Several of the agreements tracked with previously stated ambitions by both Washington, D.C., and Riyadh, particularly when it comes to defensive deals.
While the extent of the details of the agreements remain unclear, there were deals included that had not been previously flagged ahead of the president’s visit to the Middle East, like the “cooperation agreement” between Saudi Arabia and the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of Asian Arts, as well as an agreement established with the Smithsonian Institute National Zoo and Conservation Biology.
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In a statement immediately following the signing ceremony in Riyadh, the White House said, “Saudi Arabia’s $600-billion commitment to invest in the United States, building economic ties that will endure for generations to come.”
The largest investments detailed in the agreement included a $20 billion investment by Saudi Arabia’s DataVolt in AI data centers and energy infrastructure in the United States, an $80 billion investment in “cutting-edge transformative technologies in both countries” by Google, DataVolt, Oracle, Salesforce, AMD and Uber, as well as a massive $142 billion defensive package.
According to the White House, “The United States and Saudi Arabia signed the largest defense sales agreement in history – nearly $142 billion, providing Saudi Arabia with state-of-the-art warfighting equipment and services from over a dozen U.S. defense firms.”
The defense sale will reportedly be completed in the fall and will include air force advancement and space capabilities, air and missile defense, maritime and coastal security, border security and land forces modernization, and information and communication systems upgrades.
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