Donald Trump begins tour of Middle East
Newshour
BBC
4.4 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 13 May 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
US president Donald Trump has arrived in Saudi Arabia on his first major overseas tour of his second term. He attended a lavish lunch with some of America’s most prominent economic and tech leaders He will then fly on to Qatar - which has controversially gifted him an airliner to replace Air Force One - and then the United Arab Emirates.
Also in the programme: the head of the main UN agency for Palestinians has told the BBC that Israel's blockade of food deliveries to Palestinians in Gaza constitutes a war crime, a claim that Israel denies; and we speak to the British adventurer who climbed Mount Everest to complete the world's longest triathlon.
(Picture: US President Donald Trump shakes hands with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman after arriving in Saudi Arabia. Credit: Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. I'm Celia Hatton, and I'm coming to you live from our studio in London. |
| 0:11.8 | President Trump is in Saudi Arabia, the first country on his four-day tour of Gulf states. Diplomatically, he's expected to focus on relations with Iran and the |
| 0:22.8 | conflict in Israel. But of equal, if not more importance on this trip are the big dollar deals |
| 0:29.5 | that are expected to be signed on this tour. Let's go live to the region and to our chief |
| 0:34.1 | international correspondent, Li's Doucette. Lees, can you set the scene for us? |
| 0:39.7 | What's been happening so far? |
| 0:43.2 | What has seen it is, Celia, in the Saudi Kingdom. |
| 0:46.9 | President Trump must be very happy indeed. |
| 0:50.3 | We've seen him smiling every time he's taken to yet another elaborate and luxurious royal palace. |
| 0:58.6 | He never hides how he loves dealing with the powerful, the rich, the royal. |
| 1:02.5 | He loves all the glitter and gold, and he's getting all that and more in this royal welcome. |
| 1:08.2 | The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally met him at the international airport |
| 1:14.1 | and said of just sending a delegation as he did when President Biden visited three years ago. |
| 1:22.4 | Well, he might be enjoying the pageantry, but what are President Trump's priorities on this trip? |
| 1:31.5 | President Trump-Fashid likes to sell himself as the king of dealmakers. And there are |
| 1:36.7 | trillions of dollars in deals on this trip in his four-day trip to the region, to Saudi Arabia, |
| 1:43.8 | to Qatar, to the United Arab Emirates, |
| 1:46.1 | not just the region's wealthiest states, but actually three of the world's wealthiest, most ambitious countries. |
| 1:54.8 | President Trump is prioritizing investment in the American economy. |
| 1:59.6 | He's brought top business executives and tech leaders with him, |
| 2:03.6 | including Elon Musk. And they're going to be signing deals here in everything from aerospace to |
| 2:09.6 | energy and to artificial intelligence. Okay, so lots of deals on the table. But what about the |
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