Beyond the headlines: explaining Trump's Gulf 'trillions'
RIYADH/DOHA (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump was wrapping up his Gulf tour on Friday having secured what the White House says is over $2 trillion for the U.S. economy in combined deals.
How that number was calculated is unclear. Based on a Reuters tally of all the specific deals announced, the total value is over $700 billion. But deal inflation is not unusual on any major visit, let alone one by a U.S. president who has long prided himself as an expert dealmaker.
The trip included big orders of Boeing planes, deals to buy U.S. defence equipment, data and technology agreements and other contracts.
But financial experts and diplomats say the headline figures have been padded out in both sides' desire to showcase the extent of their cooperation.
Of the corporate agreements worth up to $549 billion during the Trump's Gulf tour, many were non-binding memorandums of understanding, according to a Reuters analysis.
The defence sales agreed with Saudi Arabia and Qatar took the overall tally close to $730 billion, by Reuters' calculations.
Reuters could not independently verify whether additional agreements were signed without public disclosure.
"The amounts are inflated, possible spending is counted as actual - and most of the solid deals ... would have happened irrespective of who was in the White House," said Justin Alexander, Director of Khalij Economics.
During his first term, Trump said Saudi Arabia had agreed to $450 billion in deals with the U.S., but actual trade and investment flows amounted to less than $300 billion between 2017 to 2020, according to data compiled by the Arab Gulf States Institute.
"DEALMAKER IN CHIEF"
In response to a question about the figures, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Reuters: 'President Trump is the Dealmaker in Chief, and these trillions of dollars in economic agreements are great news for American companies and workers. The President is quickly delivering on his promises to Make America Strong and Wealthy Again."
A Qatari official reached by Reuters did not provide comprehensive details about Doha's commitment to Washington, and Saudi and UAE officials did not immediately respond to requests for details.
Memorandums of understanding are less formal than contracts and do not always turn into cash transactions.
Saudi Aramco, for example, announced it had signed 34 deals with U.S. companies worth up to $90 billion on AI infrastructure and other areas. But most of the tie-ups were non-binding MoUs without a value attached.
Aramco's agreement to buy 1.2 million tonnes of LNG per year for a 20-year term from NextDecade had already been announced months earlier, but was still included in Wednesday's tally.
The White House said agreements signed with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani would "generate an economic exchange worth at least $1.2 trillion", and included a $96 billion sale to Qatar Airways. But it did not offer a comprehensive breakdown
A Qatari official said Qatar's sovereign wealth fund had made an "economic pledge" to invest $500 billion in the U.S. economy over the next 10 years, but that this did not yet include anything concrete.
"If the past is precedent, promised deals that have no real return on investment will eventually be shelved after having served their political purpose," said Firas Maksad, managing director at consulting firm Eurasia Group.
On the defence side, Washington signed a $142 billion arms package with Saudi Arabia covering purchases from more than a dozen U.S. companies, and what Trump said was a $42 billion defence deal with Qatar.
During his first term, Trump celebrated an announcement of approximately $110 billion of arms sales during his visit to Saudi Arabia.
But such deals extend over many years and are hard to track closely. As of 2018, only $14.5 billion of sales had been initiated and Congress began to question the deals in light of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
Despite the vagueness of the commitments and timelines, the news has boosted some market stocks.
Deutsche Bank attributed a 4.16% rise in Nvidia on Wednesday to the MoU announced by Saudi state oil giant Aramco.
And there were concrete new deals for U.S. companies.
Qatar Airways' order for 160 Boeing jetliners with GE Aerospace engines is worth $96 billion. And Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways will spend $14.5 billion to buy 28 Boeing aircraft with GE engines.
Boeing shares closed up 0.64% on Wednesday after the Doha reveal.
But some of the real gains of Trump's tour lie beyond the raw numbers.
Most importantly, the three Gulf countries have secured U.S. support for files they see as key.
Saudi Arabia is moving closer to its long-held aspiration to develop a civil nuclear energy industry, which Trump has delinked from normalising relations with Israel, a major win for the kingdom.
The UAE has signed a framework that puts it on a pathway to acquiring the advanced semiconductors it wants in order to fulfil its long-held ambition of AI leadership.
And Qatar received Trump's assurance that the U.S. would protect it if it ever came under attack.
"I think there is a wider symbolic dividend here," said Hasan Alhasan, senior fellow for Middle East policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
"While many of the U.S.'s traditional partners and allies have had a particularly tense few months of relations with the U.S., trying to navigate Trump's economic policies and his controversial approach to the Russia-Ukraine war, here are the Gulf States concluding unprecedented business deals and arms sales and taking their bilateral relationship to the next level."
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