President Donald Trump said the first overseas trip of his second term will be to to Saudi Arabia, as well as possibly the UAE and Qatar, to sign investment agreements that will see billions injected in the US economy.
“It could be next month, maybe a little bit later,” Mr Trump said on Monday in the Oval Office. “And we're going to Qatar, also, and also we're going to possibly a couple of other countries. UAE is very important … so we'll probably stop at UAE and Qatar.”
His remarks came after news outlet Axios reported that White House officials were planning Mr Trump’s first trip to Saudi Arabia in mid-May as a signal of appreciation for its planned investment in US industry.
Mr Trump noted that he visited Saudi Arabia during his first term as President after Riyadh made $450 billion worth of investments in US companies. He said Saudi Arabia had promised this time to more than double that amount with a pledge that amounts to nearly $1 trillion.
“I view it as jobs more than anything else, and now we’re close to a trillion dollars,” Mr Trump said. “So, it’s more than double the number that we did when I first came to office.”
Mr Trump, notably, did not mention the role Saudi Arabia has played in hosting negotiations over a possible summit with Russia President Vladimir Putin to discuss ending the war with Ukraine.
The US President has previously indicated that the pair could hold talks there, but has expressed frustration in recent days. Earlier on Monday, Mr Trump said he remained confident that Mr Putin would eventually back a ceasefire deal.
Mr Trump, who took office on January 20, has said he wants to see more countries – including Saudi Arabia – join the Abraham Accords, which established diplomat ties with Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan that his administration helped secure during his first term.
The prospect of Saudi Arabia participating in the agreement is complicated by Israel's war in Gaza, which has killed more than 50,300 Palestinians and reduced much of the coastal enclave to rubble.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump said he spoke to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi on Tuesday and discussed military efforts aimed at curbing Yemen's Houthis from attacking ships in the Red Sea, as well as possible solutions in Gaza. In a post on Truth Social, Mr Trump said the call went "very well".
The call comes after Washington launched a series of strikes on the Iran-backed rebels earlier this month, after they threatened to resume their attacks on international ships and Israel.
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Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
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