The first major foreign trip of his term in office takes the US President back to the Gulf.

Three countries in four days: US President Donald Trump will tour the Middle East in the coming days. First Saudi Arabia, then Qatar, and finally the United Arab Emirates. It is the Republican's first major foreign trip of his new term in office – and it comes at a time of war and crises in the region. But Trump's trip is not just about the conflicts in the Middle East; it is also, and above all, about business.

The trip sheds light on the Trumps' economic ties in the Gulf region and the role money plays in the US president's foreign policy. This is especially true at the first stop in Riyadh, where the 78-year-old Trump meets a powerful man only half his age, but with whom he has major financial ties: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as "MBS." The 39-year-old has been the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia since 2017.

According to critics, "MBS" has set new standards when it comes to the question of how unscrupulously someone uses his power for his own benefit. After the murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, which the Crown Prince allegedly ordered, he was marginalized in the West for several years. Trump, on the other hand, stood by him even during his first term in office.

The Crown Prince has centralized almost all power under his leadership. His 89-year-old father, King Salman, rarely appears in public anymore.

The Crown Prince's supporters see him as a visionary and reformer who wants to lead the country away from its dependence on oil and into a glittering future of technology and progress. Criticism is not tolerated and is pursued with the utmost severity. Courts have sometimes imposed dozens of years in prison for just a few social media posts.

Saudi Arabia's wealth from the oil and gas business rests primarily in the sovereign wealth fund (PIF), which, with assets and investments valued at well over $900 billion – many of them in US companies – is one of the largest in the world. It is controlled by the Crown Prince himself, who thus more or less controls the country's concentrated economic power. The stated goal is to grow the assets to $2 trillion by 2030. Trump has announced his intention to establish a US sovereign wealth fund of similar size.

The US President and his entourage have close economic ties to the region – even though the White House angrily denies that Trump could pursue personal interests while in office. Trump's real estate company, run by his sons Eric and Don Junior, is very active in the Gulf region.

Shortly before the visit, the Trump Organization announced new projects there: the first Trump hotel in Dubai and a golf club in Qatar. The construction of a Trump skyscraper was announced last year for the Saudi port city of Jeddah. Trump's sons and their business partners also recently announced a collaboration in the Middle East on cryptocurrencies, in which a state-backed fund from the Emirates is also involved.

According to reports, Trump was already making multimillion-dollar deals in the region, including with the Saudis, before his first term in office. According to reports, he sold the entire 45th floor of his Trump Tower in New York to the kingdom in 2001. The business relationship goes back decades. Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, maintains excellent contacts with the Saudi Crown Prince. After Kushner left the White House, the sovereign wealth fund PIF reportedly invested two billion dollars in Kushner's private equity firm.

Trump likes to portray himself as a profiteer, a "dealmaker," for whom economic considerations take precedence over fundamental values ​​such as human rights. The Republican conducts his foreign policy primarily in a transactional manner. Where democratic values ​​or principles once dictated the course, under Trump the question is: What's in it for America? During Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, for example, he tied further support for Kyiv to access to the country's natural resources. During the Gaza War, he floated the idea of ​​developing the Gaza Strip as a high-gloss real estate project: the "Riviera of the Middle East."

Trump had already set a precedent during his first term in office when, after taking office in January 2017, he became the first country ever to visit Saudi Arabia—in return for massive Saudi investments in the United States. After beginning his second term, he openly flirted with the idea that he would again honor the Saudis with the first visit, provided they were willing to invest $1 trillion in the United States. Therefore, details of major economic deals are expected to emerge during the trip.

Saudi Arabia is generally an important partner of the United States in the Middle East. It is one of the most important oil producers, one of the largest buyers of US military equipment, and a major investor. And for Washington, Saudi Arabia is the major counterweight to Iran, Israel's main enemy, when it comes to regional hegemony in the Middle East. The Crown Prince, for his part, sought to win the president's favor, as he did during Trump's first term, partly because the United States is a key partner for the purchase of weapons and defense systems.

The Khashoggi case had temporarily strained US-Saudi relations. Unlike Trump, his successor, Joe Biden, initially distanced himself from the Saudi leadership. But given the political and economic importance of the Saudis, Biden later cautiously re-engaged, including a visit to Riyadh and a much-publicized "fist bump" with the heir apparent, whom he had originally intended to make an "outsider" because of the Khashoggi murder.

Now Trump is back—and with him the policy of big money deals and open arms toward Riyadh and the Crown Prince. Since the Khashoggi case, the Saudi royal family has known that it has Trump as its supporter—no matter what it does. This message also goes to other authoritarian states: If a country is economically significant enough, Trump's administration will forgive many things.