The Trump Administration’s Entanglements With Saudi Arabia

Trump administration economic projects like its big AI build-out involve billions of dollars in investments from the Saudi Arabian government. The committee that’s supposed to oversee the deals is stacked with officials with business ties to the Saudis.

Donald Trump shakes hands with Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office of the White House on March 20, 2018, in Washington, DC. (Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images)


President Donald Trump is laying the groundwork for more than a trillion dollars in investments into the United States’ economy and more than half of that is coming from the authoritarian Saudi Arabian government, resurfacing long-standing ethical and national security concerns.

But the top federal committee tasked with evaluating these business transactions is now stacked with Saudi-connected officials, and a global law firm just concluded the powerful oversight committee “may be less wary of investments from Saudi Arabia” than it was in the past.

The massive investments stem from two announcements from Trump during his first week in office. On January 21, the president announced Project Stargate, a $500 billion plan involving three companies with Saudi connections to build artificial intelligence data centers, with the first center to be constructed in Texas. Two days later, Saudi Arabia announced that it would be investing $600 billion in US trade, companies, and products over the next four years.

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