Latest news with #TrumpVisit
Al Jazeera
16 hours ago
- Business
- Al Jazeera
Trump's Gulf deals and political promises
Money Works Trump's Gulf deals and political promises During Trump's tour of Gulf states in May, the US president was eager to talk about the deals he'd made and the investments he'd secured, but do the numbers add up and how many of the agreements touted were actually a result of his visit?
Arab News
3 days ago
- Business
- Arab News
Trump's new agenda leaves Israel marginalized
When Air Force One left the tarmac in Abu Dhabi after US President Donald Trump concluded a whirlwind four-day visit to the Gulf this month, the general consensus was that it was a major success that brought the region and the US closer than they have been for a long time. For someone not known for his discipline and predictability, there was much coherence in Trump's approach to the engagement with his hosts, aimed at building a long-term partnership. But there was also robust gesturing to Benjamin Netanyahu's Israeli government that it is increasingly being seen as a liability for US interests in the region. Trump no doubt enjoyed the lavish hospitality, but there was also a combination of building close personal friendships, interwoven with much substance beyond the ambience and optics of this visit, as was illustrated in his speech during an investment conference in Riyadh. Much of the focus for Trump reflected his transactional approach to foreign politics, agreeing major long-term economic deals that also reflected a commitment to the security and stability of the countries he visited. However, there was clear departure from the past when it came to the overall approach of dealing with this region, and probably others too. Trump's declaration that the world's most powerful superpower will refrain from 'giving you lectures on how to live' and from interventionism was met with a mixture of approval and a sigh of relief, but this also has implications for Israel. For Israel, this sends a different and worrying message, beyond the fact that Trump and his administration are reportedly growing weary of the way Israel is conducting the war in Gaza. One of the pillars of the close alliance between the US and Israel — even when the US' hardcore interests have dictated otherwise — emanated from them sharing democratic values. Trump and his administration are reportedly growing weary of the way Israel is conducting the war in Gaza Yossi Mekelberg For decades, Israeli leaders effectively utilized these shared values to gain enormous benefits that no other country in the world has enjoyed: military aid that includes the most advanced and expensive weaponry; intelligence cooperation; economic aid; defending it in international forums including the UN Security Council; and a free trade agreement, in addition to close cultural ties. However, Trump does not believe that close ties between countries have to be based on similar systems of governance. And in any case, Israel's democracy is in dangerous retreat, not to mention its record on human rights regarding the Palestinians on either side of the Green Line, which no longer qualifies it for special treatment as a democracy. Even Trump's decision not to have a stopover in Israel on his first visit abroad — and one to the Middle East at that — was a clear and painful reminder to Tel Aviv that, at least under its current government, it is quickly being relegated in importance by the US. And more concerning for Israel, America is fast becoming an obstacle to what it is trying to accomplish. The American president is still broadcasting mixed messages about the future of Gaza and the sooner he abandons his idea of pushing the Palestinian population out of the Strip, the better. Nevertheless, Trump seemed to be receptive to the unified warnings he heard during his visit to the Gulf, which called for prioritizing an end to the suffering of the people of Gaza. The writing for Israel was already on the wall before Trump arrived in Riyadh: Netanyahu no longer calls the shots in Washington. When he visited the White House last month, he sat next to the president as the cameras rolled and Trump revealed, for the first time, that the US was engaged in 'direct talks' with Iran over its nuclear program. In diplomatic terms, this was a public slap in the face for Netanyahu, who vehemently opposes diplomacy with Tehran as a tool to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapon capability. Israel's leader favors a tightening of the sanctions on Iran or, preferably, a joint US-Israeli military operation to destroy its nuclear program. It was not only America's direct negotiations with Iran that caused displeasure to Netanyahu and his far-right government, but also its talks with Hamas over a ceasefire and the release of the remaining hostages. For better or for worse, Trump and many of his advisers have not arrived in politics the conventional way and they do not abide by diplomatic conventions, traditions or history. Gradually, in the case of Gaza, the intransigence of Netanyahu is seen as an obstacle to reaching a ceasefire Yossi Mekelberg A case in point is Trump's surprise meeting with the interim president of Syria, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, along with the decision to remove the sanctions imposed on the country. At a time when Israel's dealings with the new Syria are solely through occupation and military force, Washington is prepared to strengthen Al-Sharaa's position as a potentially moderate and stabilizing figure. And one would not be surprised if Washington's next step was to demand that Israel refrain from flexing its military muscles with its northeastern neighbor. Despite the inherent contradictions in Trump's attitude to Gaza, he seems increasingly upset by the images of civilian suffering. Trump is looking for quick solutions, including in Gaza, instead of the open-ended war — with its horrific consequences for innocent people of all ages — that the Netanyahu government is conducting. It goes against how Trump sees conflicts. Maybe simplistically, for him all wars and conflicts are resolvable and it is those leaders who do not understand the art of the deal and fail to recognize that this can bring wars to an end who frustrate him. And gradually, in the case of Gaza, the intransigence of Netanyahu is seen as an obstacle to reaching a ceasefire and as harmful to regional stability; hence, it also harms American interests. Whether Trump did threaten to abandon Israel should the war not be 'wrapped up,' as has been reported, is not clear, but the gist is that he is losing patience with Netanyahu. The latter must make a choice: continue to cave in to the hell-bent pursuit of mass war crimes by the ultranationalist religious zealots in his coalition — and as a consequence further jeopardize relations with Washington and other countries — or do what his own countrymen and the international community demand of him: bring the war in Gaza to an end. If Netanyahu's choice is to continue the war in Gaza for his own political ends, and by that to further damage relations with Washington, it will be yet another reason why Israelis must be the ones to democratically bring an end to his time in office.
New York Times
5 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Tech's Trump Whisperer, Tim Cook, Goes Quiet as His Influence Fades
In the run-up to President Trump's recent trip to the Middle East, the White House encouraged chief executives and representatives of many U.S. companies to join him. Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive, declined, said two people familiar with the decision. The choice appeared to irritate Mr. Trump. As he hopscotched from Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates, Mr. Trump took a number of shots at Mr. Cook. During his speech in Riyadh, Mr. Trump paused to praise Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, for traveling to the Middle East along with the White House delegation. Then he knocked Mr. Cook. 'I mean, Tim Cook isn't here but you are,' Mr. Trump said to Mr. Huang at an event attended by chief executives like Larry Fink of the asset manager BlackRock, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Jane Fraser of Citigroup and Lisa Su of the semiconductor company AMD. Later in Qatar, Mr. Trump said he 'had a little problem with Tim Cook.' The president praised Apple's investment in the United States, then said he had told Mr. Cook, 'But now I hear you're building all over India. I don't want you building in India.' On Friday morning, Mr. Trump caught much of his own administration and Apple's leadership off guard with a social media post threatening tariffs of 25 percent on iPhones made anywhere except the United States. The post thrust Apple back into the administration's cross hairs a little over a month after Mr. Cook had lobbied and won an exemption from a 145 percent tariff on iPhones assembled in China and sold in the United States. The new tariff threat is a reversal of fortune for Mr. Cook. In eight years, he's gone from one of Mr. Trump's most beloved chief executives — whom the president mistakenly and humorously called Tim Apple in 2019 — to one of the White House's biggest corporate targets. The breakdown has been enough to make insiders across Washington and Silicon Valley wonder: Has tech's leading Trump whisperer lost his voice? Nu Wexler, principal at Four Corners Public Affairs and a former Washington policy communications executive at Google and Facebook, said Mr. Cook's 'very public relationship' with Mr. Trump has backfired. 'It has put Apple at a disadvantage because every move, including a potential concession from Trump, is scrutinized,' Mr. Wexler said. Because Mr. Trump didn't 'have much incentive to either go easy on Apple or cut a deal on tariffs,' he said, 'the incentive to crack down is much stronger.' Apple did not provide comment. The White House declined to comment on the Middle East trip. Mr. Trump's new tariffs followed a report by The Financial Times that Apple's supplier Foxconn would spend $1.5 billion on a plant in India for iPhones. The president said the tariffs would begin at the end of June and affect all smartphones made abroad, including Samsung's devices. Earlier in the week, Mr. Cook had visited Washington for a meeting with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. During an appearance on Fox News on Friday, Mr. Bessent said the administration considered overseas production of semiconductors and electronics components 'one of our greatest vulnerabilities,' which Apple could help address. 'President Trump has been consistently clear about the need to reshore manufacturing that is critical to our national and economic security, including for semiconductors and semiconductor products,' said Kush Desai, a White House spokesman. He added that the administration 'continues to have a productive relationship with Apple.' The timing of the White House's new tariff plan couldn't be worse for Mr. Cook, who has led Apple for nearly 14 years. Last month, the company suffered a stinging defeat in an App Store trial. The judge in the trial rebuked Apple executives, saying they had 'outright lied under oath' and that 'Cook chose poorly,' and ruled that Apple had to change how it operates the App Store. Jony Ive, Apple's former chief designer who became estranged from Mr. Cook and left the company in 2019, joined OpenAI last week to build a potential iPhone competitor. Its Vision Pro mixed reality headset, released in January 2024 to fanfare, has been a disappointment. And in March, Apple postponed its promised release of a new Siri, raising fresh doubts about its ability to compete in the industry's race to adopt artificial intelligence. Still, Apple's market value has increased by more than $2.5 trillion under his leadership, or about $500 million a day since 2011. And Apple remains a moneymaking machine, generating an annual profit of nearly $100 billion. With Mr. Trump's re-election, Mr. Cook appeared to be in a strong position to help Apple navigate the new administration. In 2019, Mr. Trump said Mr. Cook was a 'great executive because he calls me and others don't.' Mr. Cook still occasionally pushed back on the president's agenda. During an appearance at a conference for Fortune magazine in late 2017, Mr. Cook explained that the company would love to make things in the United States but that China had more engineers and better skills. He appeared before a live audience on MSNBC a few months later and criticized the president's policy on immigration. This year, their warm relations have run cold. Mr. Trump is more determined to quickly move manufacturing to the United States, which has made Apple a primary target. On other administration priorities like dismantling diversity initiatives, Mr. Cook has tried to take a diplomatic position. At its annual general shareholder meeting in February, he said that Apple remained committed to its 'North Star of dignity and respect for everyone' and would continue to 'create a culture of belonging,' but that it might need to make changes to comply with a changing legal landscape. The bigger problem has been trade. Apple has stopped short of committing to making the iPhone, iPad or Mac laptops in the United States. Instead, the company has moved to assemble more iPhones in India. Apple has tried to head off Mr. Trump's criticisms of its overseas manufacturing by promising to spend $500 billion in the United States over the next four years. Mr. Cook also has emphasized that the company will source 19 billion chips from the United States this year, and will start making A.I. servers in Houston. Servers haven't satisfied Mr. Trump. He wants iPhones made in the United States badly enough to create what amounts to an iPhone tariff. It would increase the cost of shipping an iPhone from India or China to the United States by 25 percent. The costs aren't so staggering that they would damage Apple's business, but Mr. Trump could always ratchet up the levies until he gets his wish. 'If they're going to sell it in America, I want it to be built in the United States,' Mr. Trump said on Friday. 'They're able to do that.' Mr. Cook hasn't responded publicly.
Arab News
5 days ago
- Business
- Arab News
Trump in Riyadh: Saudis shift the storyline
As US President Donald Trump's plane descended toward Riyadh on May 13, escorted by Saudi F-15 fighter jets, preparations on the ground evoked a quiet cultural confidence. Across the tarmac stretched the lavender ceremonial carpet, officially adopted in 2021, inspired by the desert khuzama flower and bordered with the geometric patterns of the UNESCO-inscribed traditional sadu weaving. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 'the visionary leader who never sleeps,' as Trump described him, welcomed his guest into the reception hall, where Saudi coffee was served in traditional Arabian style. And within two days, perceptions built up over decades began to shift. Riyadh was once again Trump's first foreign trip in office, this time coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the 1945 Quincy meeting between King Abdulaziz and President Franklin Roosevelt. Back in 2017, Trump's first summit in Riyadh had introduced a new political chemistry between a Saudi leadership with an ambitious vision and an outsider American administration driven more by deal-making than by bureaucratic routine. The 2025 meeting, however, took place between two well-acquainted partners, at a rare moment of symmetry: an American president returning to power after a sweeping victory, and a young Saudi leader who is the architect of regional transformation and the subject of global fascination, thanks to a vision that repositioned his country as a rising force on the global stage. While analysts were preoccupied with the headlines of political understandings, investment deals, and bilateral economic agreements, the deeper meaning of this visit lay in how the Saudis chose to present themselves, and how the Americans responded. For decades, visits by Western, especially American, leaders to the region followed a familiar script: security cooperation in exchange for energy stability, filtered through a condescending outsider's gaze and quiet assumptions of superiority. But this time, something fundamental had changed. The inspiring Saudi reality on the ground turned old expectations on their head and signaled a new way of seeing. The visit became an opportunity for Saudi Arabia to reintroduce itself to the world through its most authentic symbols, to reshape the storyline through which it has long been seen — the lavender carpet; dallah pots pouring Saudi coffee into finjan cups; Arabian horses escorting the presidential motorcade through Al-Yamamah Palace; and the samri dance that greeted Trump in At-Turaif, the UNESCO-listed district in Diriyah, birthplace of the Saudi state that restored the Arabian Peninsula's central role after a millennium away from the geopolitical spotlight. This was a live act of meaning-making from a nation that knows its own cultural weight. On air, in real time, the Kingdom projected a narrative of itself as confident, visionary, ambitious, and economically powerful. A country shaping how it wants to be seen. Western media captured the symbolism with awe, while Saudi digital majlises erupted with pride. The message was unmistakable: Welcome to the new Saudi Arabia, a nation proud of its roots, open to the world, and carrying a heritage unfolding toward the future. Beyond symbolism, the perception shift was clearest in Trump's own speech. In one of its most striking moments, he delivered a sharp critique of 'Western interventionists ... giving you lectures on how to live or how to govern your own affairs ... intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand.' Then he declared that 'the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not built by so-called nation-builders, or neocons, or liberal nonprofits. They were built by the people of this region themselves, developing their own sovereign countries, pursuing their own visions, and charting their own destinies.' The 2025 Riyadh Summit marks a new chapter in the Saudi-US story, one defined by mutual respect and a new understanding of the region from within, rather than through borrowed frameworks. Dr. Hatem Alzahrani This echoed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's 2018 remarks at the Future Investment Initiative, two years after Vision 2030 was launched: 'The new Europe is the Middle East' and that achieving this vision is 'the Saudis' war, my war personally. I do not want to die without seeing the Middle East at the forefront of the world. This goal will be achieved 100 percent.' Some at the time saw those words as a visionary promise still far from reach. Even Trump acknowledged that: 'Critics doubted whether what you achieved at home was even possible.' But what once sounded like a distant ambition is now an undeniable reality, and the US leader's remarks were a direct response to that. Moreover, these remarks marked a shift in how Washington perceives its relationship with the region. They pushed back against the 'Western savior' narrative, returned credit to local agency, and acknowledged that real change is now coming from within. The outcomes of the visit reflected this shift as well, culminating in a strategic economic partnership covering vital sectors. For years, the Middle East figured in American discourse as a problem to fix, a threat to contain, or a place waiting to be saved. These portrayals were largely imagined constructs, shaped by entrenched Western frameworks built on outdated assumptions and ideological baggage. As historian Zachary Lockman reminds us in 'Contending Visions of the Middle East,' much of the Western scholarly engagement with the region was historically tied to the priorities of foreign powers, rather than a genuine intellectual quest for understanding. The Middle East was treated as the 'Other,' an object to be studied and explained in service of Western strategy. Now, the lens is changing. The developmental models taking shape in the wider region are not imported templates, but strategies born from lived experience and cultural depth. Now reality leads perception, after decades in which perception shaped reality. Thanks to countries like Saudi Arabia, the region is reclaiming its voice as a fully engaged actor, redefining itself from within what was long considered an 'exotic' or 'mysterious' part of the world. Saudi Arabia is redrawing its global image with clarity of vision and tangible results. Through self-assessment, data-driven governance, and large-scale reforms, the Kingdom has done in a few years what Trump called 'a modern miracle, the Arabian way.' This shift echoes a broader global rebalancing. As Fareed Zakaria outlines in 'The Age of Revolutions,' we are witnessing the rise of 'new powers,' countries that combine bold economic reform with cultural self-confidence and geopolitical ambition. Saudi Arabia stands as a leading example of these emerging global actors. With strategic clarity, Saudi Arabia is reclaiming its place in the global imagination, not as a petro-state anomaly, but a civilizational force rooted in the Arabian Peninsula. For centuries, this land served as a crossroads of trade and a hub of cultural exchange. It gave rise to a language that became a global medium of learning and philosophy. From its historic cities, the people of Arabia, alongside peoples from Asia, Africa, and Europe, helped synthesize ancient knowledge and forge new ideas in science, law, literature, and spirituality. Vision 2030 calls back to this legacy as a strategic resource, reinvesting it to forge global partnerships, articulate a confident Saudi identity, and position the Kingdom as a key player in shaping the future. In that spirit, the 2025 Riyadh Summit marks a new chapter in the Saudi-US story, one defined by mutual respect and a new understanding of the region from within, rather than through borrowed frameworks. 'All of humanity will soon be amazed at what they will see right here in this geographic center of the world and the spiritual heart of its greatest faiths,' Trump declared in his Riyadh address. It was a shift in perception, a recognition that the West will now understand the region through its own successful models. And at the center of those models stands Saudi Arabia as a force actively shaping the narratives of tomorrow. • Dr. Hatem Alzahrani is a writer, cultural adviser, and academic specializing in Middle Eastern cultures. He holds an MA from Yale University and a Ph.D. from Georgetown University. He is a member of the International Arts Advisory Committee at the Middle East Institute. X: @HoYalieOfArabia
CTV News
22-05-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
CTV National News: Trump confirms he will visit Canada for G7
Watch The White House confirmed U.S. President Donald Trump will visit Canada for the G7 Summit in June. Rachel Aiello on the impact his attendance could have.
