Donald J Trump has a mastery over occupying attention, verbalising to dominate discourse. Trump explained his approach in The Art of the Deal: “I play to people’s fantasies. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular.”
As the world grappled with uncertainty and his word salads, Trump embodied the political version of the film Everything Everywhere All At Once, an exploration of alternative visions and realities. Trump started the week claiming to be a peace-maker. “My administration helped broker an immediate ceasefire, I think a permanent one between India and Pakistan.” By Thursday, active intervention was toned down to passive persuasion, that he helped settle the tensions between India and Pakistan.
Trump’s week didn’t end well, stained by a no-show by Vladimir Putin, Republicans in rebellion and a downgrade of US by Moody’s. That said, the wizardry was in full display Monday through Friday, as Trump courted the royalty of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE to charm and be charmed. The imagery of flattery, tariff threats, and claims of glory were inescapable across touch screens and living rooms. To assess the success, it is necessary to sift the daylight between hyperbole and reality.
Trump presented Saudi Arabia with a glimpse of the artful dodge, deal-making with a cocktail of geopolitics and geo-economics. The lifting of sanctions over Syria and a photo-op meeting with Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa, at the behest of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, provided mood music for the parade of deals. Trump claimed the Saudis would invest over USD 600 billion in the US. Typically, he summed up saying, “We are rocking.”
While the arithmetic of trillions of dollars in investment is up for debate, it is instructive to look at history. In May 2017, Trump in his first term announced arms sales to Saudi Arabia worth nearly USD 110 billion, adding up to USD 350 billion over 10 years. The magnitude of the deal, questioned by commentators like Bruce Riedel, didn’t quite fructify for a host of reasons—the war in Yemen, the Jamal Khashoggi killing and questions raised by Congress.
As of January 2025, per a US state department report, of the USD 110-billion deal for Saudi armed forces’ modernisation, only USD 30 billion has come through. Incidentally, SIPRI data shows the Saudi defence budget for 2024 was USD 80 billion. A recent analysis by Reuters suggests that of the USD 450 billion in deals signed between the US and Saudi Arabia, the actual trade and investment flows amounted to less than $300 billion between 2017 and 2020.
The Trump caravan arrived in Doha on Wednesday escorted by US-made F15 fighter aircraft. The White House declared that Trump had signed an ‘economic exchange’ worth USD 1.2 trillion. Qatar pledged to invest USD 500 billion in the US through its wealth fund in the next 10 years. The Qatar Investment Authority currently has assets worth USD 526 billion. Besides the pledge, there were deals in energy, AI and a 200-aircraft order from Qatar Airways for Boeing.
Trump, predictably, claimed the deal worth USD 96 billion—dialled down from Trump’s claim of USD 200 billion—was the largest order for Boeing and would support 150,000 jobs a year. Boeing has been wracked by a series of quality and quantity issues. The big challenge is not getting orders, but delivering on time. As of April 30, as per Boeing’s records, it had unfulfilled orders for 6,282 aircraft.
The deals parade concluded in Abu Dhabi. Trump declared signing deals worth $200 billion with the UAE. These include the purchase of 28 Boeing aircraft by Etihad Airways, an aluminium smelter project, collaboration with ADNOC on energy, access to AI chips and technology, besides a commitment of USD 1.4-trillion investment spread over 10 years.
The potential of promise is haunted by history—beyond claims, the average annual foreign direct investment into the US is at around USD 300 billion. The arms deal with the UAE faces rough weather, with the opposition in the House raising the emirate’s alleged involvement in Sudan’s civil war and China hawks in the administration concerned about leakage of technology and chips to China. Trump’s bet seems to be to outpace China’s outreach in West Asia.
How his bet plays out depends on Trump’s domination of his party and domestic politics. Doubts surfaced on Friday as five Republicans blocked the passage of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, triggering an angry post on Truth Social. The controversy about the “gift” of an aircraft to Trump, with attendant questions on security, has overshadowed his triumphs.
Beyond the drama of US politics, what is striking is the arrival of a burlesque spectacle—third-world economic populism fuelled by first-world politics. The imposition of a 5 percent tax on remittances is a page out of Mahathir Mohammad’s book on capital controls. Trump’s directive to Apple to not expand production is reminiscent of socialist regimes dictating to private companies.
The tariff policy threatens to be a stark repeat of the blunders of the Depression era. The quest to move production from low-cost geographies to high-wage ones will worsen inflation and the cost of servicing the USD 36-trillion debt. The US dollar has yo-yoed since Liberation Day. On Friday, Moody’s Ratings downgraded US credit from Moody’s Ratings downgraded US credit from Aaa to Aa1, lower than Germany and Canada’s, citing deterioration in the US fiscal relative to its own past and that of others.
The art of politics of economics is defined by a multiple of variables—of what is known and what is unknown, by what happens and, often, by what does not happen.
SHANKKAR AIYAR
Author of The Gated Republic, Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India’s 12 Digit Revolution, and Accidental India
(shankkar.aiyar@gmail.com)