President Donald Trump described the first day of his overseas trip in Saudi Arabia as “a tremendous day” — referring to billions in investments — in his first remarks at the top of one of several bilateral meetings.
Trump’s first remarks to reporters on Saturday included:
That was a tremendous day. I just want to thank everybody. But tremendous investments in to the United States, and our military community is very happy, and we want to thank you and Saudi Arabia. But hundreds of billions of dollars of investments into the United States and jobs, jobs, jobs.
During a signing ceremony, the U.S. President signed a joint vision statement, private sector agreements, and defense cooperation agreements with Saudi Arabia. The defense agreements are worth $110 billion effective immediately and worth an additional $350 billion over ten years, according to a White House official.
At one point during the day, the President’s Chief Economic Advisor Gary Cohn answered reporters’ questions as to what was being signed. He said that the signing was “to invest a lot of money in the U.S. and have a lot of U.S. companies invest and build things over here.” He continued, “They’re going to hire U.S. companies … a bunch of infrastructure related things … A lot of money. Big dollars. Big dollars.”
Cohn told reporters that things were going “really well.”
During brief remarks to reporters at the top of a meeting between President Trump and the Deputy Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, Trump said, “It was a great day.” Jared Kushner, Cohn, Stephen K. Bannon, and Dina Powell were also in the room.
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