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President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman touted a pledge for $1 trillion in commercial deals in Riyadh on Tuesday, a staggering figure that doesn’t quite stand up to scrutiny.

“With the help of the people of the Middle East, the people in this room, partners throughout the region, the golden age of the Middle East can proceed right alongside of us,” Trump said at a Saudi-US investment summit to announce the planned deals. “We will work together. We will be together. We will succeed together. We will win together, and we will always be friends.”

But the glitzy event — where top officials and corporate executives including billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk and Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang sat in armchairs, serenaded by Trump’s typical rally soundtrack — sets up a test for the US president and Saudi crown prince, who have struggled at times to match their rhetoric with reality.

Both leaders claimed Saudi Arabia would invest $1 trillion in the US, but signage at the conference put the cumulative total of the deals as actually worth over $300 billion. Hours earlier, the White House cited a $600 billion investment. The discrepancy is significant: The $1 trillion figure roughly matches Saudi Arabia’s entire gross domestic product.

Today's show features:

Gregg Roman, Executive Director of the Middle East Forum
Bloomberg News Senior Editor & Crypto / Digital Payments Team Leader Mike Regan and Bloomberg News Investigations Reporter Anthony Cormier
Karen Veraa-Perry. Managing Director and Head of iShares US Fixed Income Strategy at BlackRock
Bloomberg News Investigations Reporter Rachel Adams Heard

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Trump and MBS Tout $1 Trillion Pledge as Details Remain Elusive

Bloomberg Businessweek