Donald Trump defended Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the murder of a journalist and hailed a $1 trillion investment pledge Tuesday as the US president laid on a lavish welcome at the White House.Trump moved to consolidate his growing bromance with the de facto Saudi leader, giving him a parade of soldiers on horseback and a military flypast featuring F-35 jets that he said Washington would soon sell to Riyadh.Opening their White House meeting with praise for the prince’s “incredible” human rights record, Trump dismissed the 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi, saying “things happened” and calling the dead journalist “extremely controversial.”Trump also raged at a reporter, accusing her of “embarrassing” Prince Mohammed with her questions over the murder — which US intelligence has suggested the prince approved — and saying the visiting royal knew “nothing about it.” The Saudi prince responded by saying the murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was a “huge mistake,” while insisting it had been fully investigated.The heir to the throne then delighted Trump by announcing that he was increasing the $600 billion Saudi investment he promised Trump when the US president visited the country in May.”We can announce that we are going to increase that $600 billion to almost $1 trillion for investment,” Prince Mohammed said in the Oval Office.A grinning Trump asked him to confirm the figure, to which the Saudi royal replied: “Definitely.”- Rose Garden tour -Trump pulled out all the stops for the Saudi prince, giving him treatment normally reserved for a state visit to the White House, despite the fact that he is not a head of state.He welcomed bin Salman — who is widely known as MBS — on the South Lawn of the White House as cannon fire boomed out, before they watched the noisy flypast by US military jets.The 79-year-old Republican then showed the prince a new gallery of presidential portraits by the Rose Garden — including one portraying his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden as an autopen.Trump has accused an ageing Biden of using the automated device to sign presidential pardons, and questioned their legality.Later in the day First Lady Melania Trump will hold a gala dinner.Portugal soccer legend Cristiano Ronaldo, who plays in Saudi Arabia, will also be at the White House for the gala day of events, a White House official told AFP.The president has made a priority of boosting ties with the oil-rich Gulf kingdom, particularly as he seeks to turn the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza into a longer-lasting regional peace.Trump said he had pushed the prince to normalize relations with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords that he launched in his first term.Prince Mohammed said he was working to do so “as soon as possible” but insisted on securing a “clear path of two-state solution” for a Palestinian state first.- ‘Destroyed my life’ -Trump meanwhile reiterated his intention to sell Saudi Arabia coveted F-35 stealth fighters, despite concerns from Israel and warnings from US officials that China could steal technological knowledge about the jets. In another area of past contention, Trump will sign a deal on a framework for civilian nuclear cooperation, a US official and a source familiar with the negotiations said.The 40-year-old prince has fostered close ties with Trump and his family over the years, including through investment pledges to the property billionaire-turned-US president.But the shadow of Khashoggi’s murder during Trump’s first term, which sparked global outrage and chilled relations between Washington and Riyadh for years, hung over the meeting.Khashoggi’s widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, told CNN that her husband’s killing had “destroyed my life.””I hope they look at the American values of human rights and (democracy)” besides any deal and selling weapons, she said.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron vowed Tuesday to help Europe catch up in the AI race and unshackle the continent from a heavy reliance on US tech titans.Speaking at a Berlin summit attended by regional tech firms and investors, the leaders of Europe’s biggest economies also backed the EU’s expected rollback of digital rules that many firms complain are holding them back.European companies pledged more than 12 billion euros ($13.9 billion euros) investment in the digital sector at the event, according to Merz, as the continent seeks to catch up with the United States and China in the AI race.”Europe doesn’t want to be the client of the big entrepreneurs or the big solutions being provided either from the US or from China, we clearly want to design our own solutions,” Macron said, adding that this stance represented “a refusal of being a vassal”.Merz called for Europe to “join forces and forge its own digital path — and this path must lead to digital sovereignty”.”Digital sovereignty has costs, but the costs of digital dependence are even higher,” said the chancellor. – Uneasy US ties -Europe is responding to calls to blaze its own digital path as concerns escalate about US tech dominance at a time of increasingly uneasy ties with Washington under the “America First” administration of Donald Trump.Despite the US-Europe tensions, a senior official from the French presidency earlier said the summit was not about “confrontation” with the United States or even China, but rather protecting “our core sovereignty”.Amid concerns that onerous rules are hobbling European tech firms, France and Germany said they are pushing for a “simple, innovation-friendly and competitive EU regulatory framework”, according to a statement from Berlin after the summit.They are calling specifically for a 12-month postponement for parts of the EU’s AI law, and simplifications of the bloc’s flagship data protection rules, it said. The EU is expected to propose a rollback in these areas Wednesday — a move welcomed by businesses, but criticised by privacy advocates.Macron also urged preference to be given to European tech companies when handing out contracts, in particular from the public sector. “Because guess what? The Chinese have a Chinese exclusivity … and the Americans have a very strong American preference,” he said.- Sensitive data -Calls have been growing for European firms to be more often given the job of handling sensitive data of the region’s citizens, rather than handing it to foreign cloud computing giants.Earlier at the summit, the EU’s digital chief announced that Amazon and Microsoft cloud services could face stricter competition rules in the bloc as Brussels probes their market power.Digital ministers from across Europe, as well as CEOs of tech firms like France’s Mistral and Germany’s SAP, took part in the summit.A total of 18 new partnerships between companies and the AI sector were unveiled at the summit, according to an EU initiative for promoting the technology.This ranged from a tie-up between SAP and Mistral on a providing “sovereign” services, to deals involving carmaker Mercedes-Benz and insurer Allianz, it said.As well as worrying about US dependence, Europe has long-standing concerns about reliance on firms in China and other parts of Asia for hardware, from semiconductors to laptop components.But the continent faces an uphill battle to switch supply chains from foreign companies in the digital realm.The region is struggling after a period of prolonged economic weakness and its tech firms remain far smaller than their US rivals.As of last year, the continent’s data centres — crucial for AI — had computing capacity of just 16 gigawatts, compared with 48 in the US and 38 in China, according to a recent study by German digital business association Bitkom.But SAP CEO Christian Klein struck an upbeat note.”We have our own industries that we are good at,” he said during a panel at the summit. “Let’s apply AI in these battlegrounds, then Europe has a bright future.”