Sunday, May 11th, I'm Ali Valshi.

Happy Mother's Day.

As global trade relations and regional conflicts continue to be sources of tension around

the world, President Trump and members of his administration are heading abroad this week.

In a couple of days, the president is going to touch down for a tour of the

Middle East. He's going to be making official stops in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates,

and Qatar, which is where most of the Israel-Gaza ceasefire talks have been taking place.

Now, that's sure to be top on the agenda this week, but President Trump is also perhaps

more likely to use this trip to tout the deals that he's secured in the regions,

not peace deals, but just days after he returned to the White House this year, Saudi Arabia

announced it's going to invest $600 billion in the United States over the next four years.

Not to be outdone in March, the UAE announced it would invest $1.4 trillion in America over 10 years. The trip in some ways is

also going to be a showcase of Trump's support for Pete Hegsseth, his unsurprisingly embattled

Defense Secretary, who needs to put his phone away for a while and maybe instead read some

books. Hegsteth has already been the subject of multiple scandals over his use of

the commercial messaging app signal, but his inclusion in this trip emphasizes how Trump

continues to stick by him. Also an interesting topic of discussion, despite declining to tell an ABC

news reporter a couple of weeks ago that Hegsef has his full confidence. Meanwhile, the Treasury

Secretary, Scott Besant, is in Geneva right now, RN, as the kids say,

leading what I'm told are trade talks between the U.S. and China. On social media, President

Trump posted, quote, many things discussed, much agreed to. Great progress made. But neither

the U.S. nor China have announced any changes to their trade policies yet.

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