| President Trump left yesterday for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the first stop in his Gulf tour. Doug Mills/The New York Times |
Trump’s Gulf tour is all about business
President Trump has always viewed the presidency as a worldwide hunt for deals. Today he is set to begin a four-day swing through Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and he has told his advisers that he wants to announce deals worth more than $1 trillion.
In place of any grand strategy will be a series of financial transactions that Trump will promote as producers of jobs for American workers. He is pushing Saudi leaders to invest a sum equivalent to Saudi Arabia’s entire annual gross domestic product.
Trump’s agenda conveniently aligns with his expanding business plans. His family has six deals pending with a majority Saudi-owned real estate firm, a cryptocurrency deal with a U.A.E. affiliate and a new golf and luxury villa project backed by Qatar.
A questionable gift: The Qatari royal family is going to great lengths to court Trump, offering as a donation a luxury Boeing 747-8 plane that will be upgraded to serve as Air Force One. Trump angrily brushed off ethical concerns about the gift yesterday, saying that only someone “stupid” would turn down such an offer.
Gaza: Hamas yesterday released Edan Alexander, the last living U.S. hostage it held in Gaza, portraying the gesture as an attempt to secure U.S. backing for a deal to end the war.
More U.S. political news:
| Joe Biden spent Friday at a hospital after a “small nodule” was discovered on his prostate, a spokesman said.The Trump administration is considering the sale of hundreds of thousands of A.I. chips to G42, an Emirati firm that the U.S. has scrutinized over its ties to China.The administration asked the Supreme Court for permission to deport a group of nearly 200 Venezuelan migrants who are detained in Texas and accused of being gang members.A plane carrying white South Africans who have been granted refugee status landed in the U.S. Trump said that they were victims of “genocide,” a claim not supported by police data. |
| U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, right, in Geneva yesterday. Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
The U.S. and China temporarily slashed tariffs
The U.S. and China agreed yesterday that they would suspend their respective tariffs for 90 days and continue negotiations. Trump said that he expected to talk to President Xi Jinping of China this week, but that a full deal would take awhile.
The White House appeared to be backing down as the costs of an all-out trade war were threatening the global economy. The tariff truce was another illustration of the limitations of Trump’s aggressive approach to trade.
After two days of talks in Geneva, the U.S. agreed to reduce the tariffs on Chinese imports to 30 percent from 145 percent, while China lowered its import duty on U.S. goods to 10 percent from 125 percent. Global stocks surged after the announcement. Here’s what else to know.
Latin America: This week, Xi is hosting Brazil’s president and other officials from Latin America and the Caribbean in Beijing to underscore that China intends to keep a firm foothold in that region.
The E.U. told Russia to choose between sanctions or a truce
European leaders yesterday threatened to impose a new round of punishing sanctions on Russia if the Kremlin did not accept an unconditional cease-fire in Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine challenged Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, to meet him for talks in Turkey on Thursday. Trump raised the stakes by saying that he might take part in that meeting. The Kremlin did not immediately respond to the suggestion that Trump might attend.
| MORE TOP NEWS |
| India and Pakistan: The situation along the border remained tenuous, but there were no reports of a major cease-fire breach. Stocks jumped in both countries. Turkey: The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the P.K.K., said that it would lay down its arms and disband after a four-decade insurgency. Yemen: Here’s why Trump suddenly declared victory over the Houthi militia. Music: La Scala announced that its next music director would be the South Korean conductor Myung-whun Chung. Sean Combs: The jury in the music mogul’s sex-trafficking trial heard extremely explicit testimony from a man who said he was paid to have sex with Combs’s former girlfriend while Combs watched. California: Gov. Gavin Newsom called on hundreds of cities, towns and counties to effectively ban homeless encampments. |
News From the U.K.
| Immigration: The government promised to tighten rules to make it harder for newcomers to permanently stay in the country. London: Counterterror police are investigating a fire at a home owned and rented out by Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Economy: Billions of pounds of spending on defense could help revive struggling small towns. |
The Vatican
| Meet the press: In his first audience with reporters, Pope Leo XIV appealed to journalists to help cool the heated language of today’s media landscape. A global platform: The issues Leo chooses to focus on can resonate far beyond the church. |
| SPORTS NEWS |
| Soccer: Carlo Ancelotti has been appointed head coach of the Brazil national team. Tennis: Is aiming the ball at your opponent unnecessarily aggressive or something the sport needs to adjust to? Cricket: Virat Kohli, one of the game’s greatest batsmen, announced his retirement from Test cricket. |
| MORNING READ |
Don Pettit, an astronaut for NASA, brought his camera on a 220-day rotation at the International Space Station. He captured dwarf galaxies, rhythmic auroras and the streaking lights of fishing boats on Earth.
“There is so much techno-geek stuff to see, or you can simply sit back and think, How cool,” he said. Take a look.
| ARTS AND IDEAS |
A rocky start for auction week
The art world is staring down a weaker-than-average season after years of declining profits. One hotly anticipated auction, held last night at Christie’s in New York, proved anticlimactic and lacked the enthusiastic buyers who defined the market’s peak in 2022.
A 1922 gridded painting by Mondrian, above, sold for $47.6 million, including fees — a rare showstopper in a bleak sale that experts said was rankled by economic uncertainty. Read more about bellwether artworks up for sale this week.
| RECOMMENDATIONS |
Cook: Three-cup chicken is a Taiwanese dish with many variations. This is our favorite.
