Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump on Tues­day held out Sau­di Ara­bia as a mod­el for a reimag­ined Mid­dle East, us­ing the first ma­jor for­eign trip of his term to em­pha­sise the promise of eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty over in­sta­bil­i­ty in a re­gion reel­ing from mul­ti­ple wars.

Of­fer­ing part­ner­ship to long­time foes, Trump said he would move to lift sanc­tions on Syr­ia and nor­malise re­la­tions with the new gov­ern­ment led by a for­mer in­sur­gent, and he tout­ed the U.S. role in bring­ing about a frag­ile cease­fire with Yemen’s Houthis. But Trump al­so in­di­cat­ed his pa­tience was not end­less, as he urged Iran to make a new nu­clear deal with the U.S. or risk se­vere eco­nom­ic and mil­i­tary con­se­quences.

With his car­rot and stick ap­proach, Trump gave the clear­est in­di­ca­tion yet of his vi­sion for re­mak­ing the re­gion, where goals of fos­ter­ing hu­man rights and democ­ra­cy pro­mo­tion have been re­placed by an em­pha­sis on eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty and re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty.

Trump al­so made a pitch to Sau­di Ara­bia to join the Abra­ham Ac­cords start­ed in his first term and recog­nise Is­rael. And he en­vi­sioned a hope­ful fu­ture for the peo­ple of Gaza — em­pha­sis­ing they must first cast off the in­flu­ence of Hamas.

“As I have shown re­peat­ed­ly, I am will­ing to end past con­flicts and forge new part­ner­ships for a bet­ter and more sta­ble world, even if our dif­fer­ences may be pro­found,” Trump said as he laid out his out­look for the re­gion in a speech at an in­vest­ment fo­rum.

Sau­di Crown Prince Mo­hammed bin Salman, the de fac­to ruler, wel­comed Trump to the king­dom with roy­al flour­ish­es and lav­ished at­ten­tion on him at every turn. It was a stark con­trast to the crown prince’s awk­ward fist bump in 2022 with then-Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, who tried to avoid be­ing seen on cam­era shak­ing hands with him dur­ing a vis­it to the king­dom.

Trump shows dis­dain for ‘na­tion-builders’ and in­ter­ven­tion­ists

The Re­pub­li­can pres­i­dent made the case for a vi­sion cen­tred in prag­ma­tism. It’s some­thing he sees as a ne­ces­si­ty for the U.S., which he be­lieves is still feel­ing the ill ef­fects of 20 years of “end­less war” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“In the end, the so-called na­tion builders wrecked far more na­tions than they built, and the in­ter­ven­tion­ists were in­ter­ven­ing in com­plex so­ci­eties that they did not even un­der­stand them­selves,” Trump said.

Trump used the mo­ment to ex­tend an olive branch to Iran and urge its lead­ers to come to terms with his ad­min­is­tra­tion on a deal to curb its nu­clear pro­gram. But he al­so warned that this op­por­tu­ni­ty to find a diplo­mat­ic so­lu­tion “won’t last for­ev­er.”

“If Iran’s lead­er­ship re­jects this olive branch ... we will have no choice but to in­flict mas­sive max­i­mum pres­sure, dri­ve Iran­ian oil ex­ports to ze­ro,” he said.

The lat­est en­treaty to Tehran comes days af­ter Trump dis­patched spe­cial en­voy Steve Witkoff to meet with Iran­ian of­fi­cials for a fourth round of talks aimed at per­suad­ing Iran to aban­don its nu­clear pro­gram.

Trump, in his speech, al­so said he hoped Sau­di Ara­bia will recog­nise Is­rael “in your own time.”

Sau­di Ara­bia long has main­tained that recog­ni­tion of Is­rael is tied to the es­tab­lish­ment of a Pales­tin­ian state along the lines of Is­rael’s 1967 bor­ders. Un­der the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion, there was a push for Sau­di Ara­bia to recog­nise Is­rael as part of a ma­jor diplo­mat­ic deal. How­ev­er, the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas at­tack on Is­rael up­end­ed those plans and sent the re­gion in­to one of the worst pe­ri­ods it has faced.

Trump mov­ing to re­store re­la­tions with new leader of Syr­ia

Sep­a­rate­ly, Trump an­nounced he was lift­ing U.S. sanc­tions on Syr­ia. He is ex­pect­ed to meet Wednes­day in Sau­di Ara­bia with Syr­i­an Pres­i­dent Ah­mad al-Sharaa, the one­time in­sur­gent who last year led the over­throw of long­time leader Bashar As­sad.

The U.S. has been weigh­ing how to han­dle al-Sharaa since he took pow­er in De­cem­ber. Gulf lead­ers have ral­lied be­hind the new gov­ern­ment in Dam­as­cus and want Trump to fol­low suit, be­liev­ing it is a bul­wark against Iran’s re­turn to in­flu­ence in Syr­ia, where it had helped prop up As­sad’s gov­ern­ment dur­ing a decade-long civ­il war.

Trump said calls from Gulf lead­ers as well as Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Re­cep Tayyip Er­do­gan shaped his sur­prise an­nounce­ment.

“So I say, good luck, Syr­ia, show us some­thing very spe­cial like they’ve done, frankly, in Sau­di Ara­bia,” Trump said.

Prince Mo­hammed care­ful­ly chore­o­graphed the vis­it as he looked to flat­ter Trump.

The de fac­to Sau­di leader greet­ed Trump warm­ly as he stepped off Air Force One at King Khalid In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. The two lead­ers then re­treat­ed to a grand hall at the Riyadh air­port, where Trump and his aides were served tra­di­tion­al Ara­bic cof­fee by wait­ing at­ten­dants wear­ing cer­e­mo­ni­al gun belts.

The lead­ers signed more than a dozen agree­ments to in­crease co­op­er­a­tion be­tween their gov­ern­ments’ mil­i­taries, jus­tice de­part­ments and cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions.

The crown prince has al­ready com­mit­ted to some $600 bil­lion in new Sau­di in­vest­ment in the U.S. And Trump teased $1 tril­lion would be even bet­ter.

Fight­er jet es­cort

The pomp be­gan be­fore Trump even land­ed. Roy­al Sau­di Air Force F-15s pro­vid­ed an hon­orary es­cort for Air Force One as it ap­proached the king­dom’s cap­i­tal — an ex­cep­tion­al­ly rare sight.

Trump and Prince Mo­hammed al­so took part in a for­mal greet­ing and lunch at the Roy­al Court at Al Ya­mamah Palace, gath­er­ing with guests and aides in an or­nate room with blue and gold ac­cents and mas­sive crys­tal chan­de­liers. As he greet­ed busi­ness ti­tans with Trump by his side, the crown prince was an­i­mat­ed and smil­ing.

Biden’s 2022 vis­it was far more re­strained. At the time, Prince Mo­hammed’s rep­u­ta­tion had been bad­ly dam­aged by a U.S. in­tel­li­gence de­ter­mi­na­tion that he had or­dered the 2018 killing of jour­nal­ist Ja­mal Khashog­gi.

But that dark mo­ment ap­peared to be dis­tant mem­o­ry for the prince on Tues­day as he rubbed el­bows with high-pro­file busi­ness ex­ec­u­tives — in­clud­ing Black­stone Group CEO Stephen Schwarz­man, Black­Rock CEO Lar­ry Fink and Tes­la and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — in front of the cam­eras and with Trump by his side.

Trump slammed Biden for “spurn­ing” a “most trust­ed and long-stand­ing part­ner.”

“We have great part­ners in the world, but we have none stronger and no­body like the gen­tle­man that’s right be­fore me,” Trump said of the prince. “He’s your great­est rep­re­sen­ta­tive.”

Lat­er, the crown prince fet­ed Trump with an in­ti­mate state din­ner at Ad-Diriyah, a UN­ESCO her­itage site that is the birth­place of the first Sau­di state and the lo­ca­tion of a ma­jor de­vel­op­ment project cham­pi­oned by the crown prince.

Qatar and UAE next

The three coun­tries on Trump’s itin­er­ary — Sau­di Ara­bia, Qatar and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates — are places where the Trump Or­ga­ni­za­tion, run by Trump’s two old­est sons, is de­vel­op­ing ma­jor re­al es­tate projects. They in­clude a high-rise tow­er in Jed­dah, a lux­u­ry ho­tel in Dubai and a golf course and vil­la com­plex in Qatar.

Trump planned to an­nounce deals at all three stops dur­ing the Mideast swing, ini­tia­tives that will touch on ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, ex­pand­ing en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion and be­yond.

.And Trump be­lieves more deals with Sau­di Ara­bia should be in the off­ing.

“I re­al­ly be­lieve we like each oth­er a lot,” Trump said at one point with a smil­ing crown prince sit­ting near­by.

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Mad­hani re­port­ed from Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates.

RIYADH, Sau­di Ara­bia (AP) —