US Politics
A home away from home: Why Trump wishes America was more like the Gulf
May 14, 2025 at 04:38
CNN — President Donald Trump would plainly like America to be more like the Gulf states he’s touring on the first big foreign trip of his new term.
He got a purple-carpeted welcome fit for a king in Saudi Arabia from Mohammed bin Salman, the ruthless and modernizing crown prince, that outstripped the showers of personal adulation from his top officials back home. More spectacle is on tap in Qatar Wednesday after Trump lands in his aging Air Force One jet – rather than the newer 747-8 his hosts want to gift him.
“We’ve launched the Golden Age of America,” Trump said in a major speech in Riyadh. “The Golden Age of the Middle East can proceed right alongside of us.”
His trip, which also includes a stop in the United Arab Emirates, is already a window into his second term.
The soliciting of hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign investment shows “America first” is as much an economic strategy as a foreign policy. And as Trump palled around with MBS, as the Saudi crown prince is widely known, it was clear the president is right at home with rich authoritarian leaders who head nations where the line between politics and personal enrichment is blurred. No one in Riyadh was complaining that his visit is also serving as a tacit endorsement of business deals his sons have clinched in countries along his route.
But Trump’s lavishing of attention on Gulf states is also highlighting the region’s rise to geopolitical and economic might. The financial muscle of oil-rich Saudis, Qataris and Emiratis is engineering a power shift from the West to the East.
Keywords
In case you missed it
<p>The US has inked its first post tariff trade deal with the United Kingdom the beneficiary – but there is one detail that will disappoint Australia.</p>
‘Trump’s Gaza’ might actually be on
New Pope elected
Bill Gates says his Foundation will close in 2045 and decries Musk for USAID cuts
Kelly Clarkson’s career dealt major blow
Trump hails US-UK trade agreement but scope of deal is unclear
‘Seems right’: Trump’s huge China call
Robert Prevost becomes first American pope and will be known as Pope Leo XIV
COLLECTING EVIDENCE: Justice Department launches criminal investigation into New York AG Letitia James
Trump says 'total reset negotiated' with China during tariff talks in Geneva