Welcome to the News Hour. President Trump signed several new agreements with Saudi Arabia today on this, the first leg of a three-nation tour of the Middle East.

It's his first major trip abroad since retaking the White House.

The president met with Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and spoke at length during an investment conference.

As Nick Schifrin reports, Mr. Trump also assailed decades of American policy in the region while he sets a new course.

Today in Riyadh, a royal welcome. A rare personal escort by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Arabian horses escorting the world's most expensive limo, and U.S. made Saudi F-15s escorting the world's most expensive passenger

plane into Riyadh.

The kingdom welcomed President Trump with lavender carpet treatment, eager for U.S. engagement,

and believing the best way to enhance it, is a meeting of the minds and money.

MBS, as the Crown Prince is widely known, and President Trump mingling with leading CEOs,

and signing tens of billions of dollars worth of agreements. Behind the show, the Crown Prince's

diplomatic priorities, including one announced today. President Trump will meet with

Ahmed al-Shara, the one-time insurgent imprisoned by the U.S. 20 years ago in Iraq, who helped

lead an al-Qaeda off-shoot in in Syria and is now Syria's interim president.

He's been campaigning for international recognition in the lifting of sanctions, which today

President Trump told business and Saudi leaders he would grant.

That's why my administration has already taken the first steps toward restoring normal

relations between the United States and Syria

for the first time in more than a decade.

I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness.

That's a reversal from recent senior U.S. skepticism, including by National Security

Council Counterterrorism Director Sebastian Gorka.

I see foreign fighters, foreign fighters from outside of Syria, being given very senior positions

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