‘America is open for business’: Trump touts growing global investments in the US, American-Saudi partnership 

President Donald Trump hailed the U.S.-Saudi partnership as “among the most consequential in the entire world” and told global leaders and investors that “America is open for business.”

“My message to all of the leaders and investors with us today, and they are the best in the world, is very simple: under the Trump administration, America’s back, and America is open for business,” Trump said in remarks Wednesday at the Saudi Investment Forum. “And America is actually stronger than it’s ever been before.”

Elon Musk, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum attended the remarks, which Trump delivered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. It followed Trump’s meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House on Tuesday, in which Trump declared Saudi Arabia a major non-NATO ally, announced the kingdom will invest nearly $1 trillion into the U.S., and agreed to provide it with F-35 fighter jets.

“We signed a historic strategic defense agreement yesterday,” Trump said. “We’re going to be selling Saudi Arabia some of the greatest military equipment ever built.”

“The partnership between our two nations is among the most consequential in the entire world, and together, the Crown Prince and I are making an alliance stronger and more powerful than it’s ever been before,” Trump said. “We’ve had good relationships, and frankly, not good. You didn’t have a good relationship with Barack Hussein Obama. You didn’t have a good relationship with sleepy Joe Biden.”

Trump repeatedly criticized former President Joe Biden, characterizing his time in office as “four years of economic nightmares.”

“Americans have rejected the failed – and they were really failed – far left models that you were looking at of high taxes and massive spending, soaring costs, crushing regulations and trillions of dollars in green, new scams,” Trump said, calling America under his administration the “hottest country” in the world. “We’re rewarding those who build and create, invent, and invest in the USA.”

Contrasting his economy to Biden’s, Trump promised his administration was “making incredible strides to make America affordable” and touting Walmart’s recent price decreases for a standard Thanksgiving dinner.

Despite Trump’s assurance that his administration is making progress on affordability, recent NBC polling of registered voters indicates that two-thirds of them think his administration has fallen short on the economy and cost of living. The White House has ramped up its messaging on affordability issues in recent weeks, after Democrats dominated the off-year elections.

During his remarks on Wednesday, Trump touched on topics ranging from threatening to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell over high interest rates to praising Boeing to promising an unprecedented U.S.-Saudi energy partnership. He also announced that at the request of the Crown Prince, the U.S. will help to seek peace in Sudan, which is engulfed in a devastating civil war and humanitarian crisis.

“It has become the most violent place on Earth, and likewise, the single biggest Humanitarian Crisis. Food, doctors, and everything else are desperately needed,” Trump elaborated on Truth Social following the investment forum. He added that the U.S. will work with Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt and other partners in the Middle East to stabilize Sudan.

Image credit: The White House