BBC News
Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sign a $142bn (£107bn) defence agreement
During a speech on stage in Riyadh, the US president calls the Saudi crown prince “an incredible man”, adding the US-Saudi bond is “more powerful than ever”
He also announces he is lifting sanctions on Syria
Trump is on the first leg of a major diplomatic four-day tour to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE
Earlier, Trump was joined by Elon Musk and other business leaders at a lavish lunch in Riyadh
Trump’s itinerary notably does not include Israel writes our North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher
The US delegation is in town and their Saudi hosts in Riyadh are pulling out all the stops for them – including this mobile McDonald’s truck.
The BBC team there tells us they’ve scoped it out.
It’s not the easiest place to get vegetarian food, and the chips went down well, one of our producers tells us.
Trump is reported to be a fan of the US fast food chain, and he even donned an apron and served customers at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania during his election campaign.
What the White House calls “the largest defence sales agreement in history” is also a measure of the changing relationship between Washington and Riyadh.
Weapons deals have long been part of this strategic partnership. But in 2021 the Biden’s administration stopped the sale of offensive weapons over Riyadh’s role in the destructive war unleashed in neighbouring Yemen.
This alliance had already been strained by the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi; a US intelligence report later found that the killing was approved by the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which he denied.
Relations slowly improved even under President Biden who, as a presidential candidate in 2019, had vowed to turn the kingdom into a pariah state. The sale of offensive weapons was resumed last year.
And there was a push to finalise a defence pact which included a normalisation of relations between the kingdom and Israel.
That’s not on the agenda now as the Gaza war grinds on.
But today President Trump was overhead saying to the crown prince: “I really believe we like each other a lot.”
