US President Donald Trump held talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday upon his arrival in the capital Riyadh at the start of a regional tour.

The Saudi Al-Ikhbariya TV reported that Trump and bin Salman held talks at the royal terminal of King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh.

No information was provided about the content of their discussions.

The US president arrived in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday on the first leg of a Gulf tour that will also take him to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), eyeing business deals even as accords on the Middle East’s hotspots will likely be harder to reach.

Accompanied by a host of influential American business leaders, including Tesla CEO and Trump adviser Elon Musk, Trump’s first stop is Riyadh, where he will attend a Saudi-US Investment Forum. He will continue to Qatar on Wednesday and the UAE on Thursday.

“While energy remains a cornerstone of our relationship, the investments and business opportunities in the kingdom have expanded and multiplied many, many times over,” Saudi Investment Minister Khalid al Falih said as he opened the forum.

“As a result... when Saudis and Americans join forces, very good things happen; more often than not, great things happen when those joint ventures occur,” he said ahead of Trump’s arrival.

The Saudi-US Investment Forum began with a video featuring soaring eagles and falcons, celebrating the long-standing relationship between the United States and the kingdom.

Seated at the front of a grand hall were Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, Stephen A. Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan and Khalid al-Falih.

Saudi Arabia and the United States have upheld strong ties for decades, rooted in a longstanding arrangement wherein the kingdom supplies oil and the superpower provides security.

Possible Türkiye visit and Iran nuclear talks

Trump has also indicated he may travel to Türkiye on Thursday for potential face-to-face talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

This is Trump’s second overseas visit taking office again—his first being to Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral—and comes at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.

In addition to pushing for a resolution to the war in Ukraine, Trump’s administration is pushing a new aid mechanism for war-torn Gaza and pressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a new ceasefire deal.

Over the weekend, US and Iranian negotiators met in Oman to discuss a possible agreement to limit Tehran’s nuclear activities.

Trump has threatened military action against Iran if diplomacy fails.

Apart from the possible Türkiye side trip, those matters are not the focus of Trump's Middle East swing as now scheduled, however.

Saudi defence, Israel normalisation

The United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE are expected to announce investments that could run into the trillions.

Saudi Arabia already committed in January to $600 billion in investments in the United States over the next four years, but Trump has said he will ask for a full trillion.

In addition to Musk, business leaders including BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser will make the trip.

Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will travel with the president.

During the Riyadh stop, Trump is expected to offer Saudi Arabia an arms package worth well over $100 billion, sources told Reuters, which could include a range of advanced weapons including C-130 transport aircraft.

The US and Saudi Arabia are expected to avoid the topic of normalisation between Riyadh and Israel altogether, sources told Reuters, even as it is Trump's most enduring geopolitical goal in the region.

Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said last week that he imminently expected progress on expanding the Abraham Accords, a set of deals brokered by Trump in his first term by which Arab states including the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco recognised Israel.

But opposition by Netanyahu to a permanent stop to the war in Gaza or to the creation of a Palestinian state makes progress on similar talks with Riyadh unlikely, sources told Reuters.

Trump's second and third stops, in Qatar and the UAE, respectively, are similarly expected to focus on economic issues.

Qatar's royal family is expected to gift Trump a luxury Boeing 747-8 plane to be outfitted for use as Air Force One, an arrangement that has drawn scrutiny from ethics experts.

Trump is expected to donate the plane to his presidential library for use after his term ends.