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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman promised on Thursday to pile $600 billion into US trade and investments as he congratulated Donald Trump on his return to the White House.Prince Mohammed, de facto leader of the world’s biggest oil exporter, made the pledge in a phone call following Trump’s inauguration on Monday, state media said.Trump forged close relations with Riyadh in his first term and is now expected to push Saudi Arabia, home of Islam’s holiest sites, towards normalising ties with Israel as a major foreign policy objective.”The crown prince affirmed the kingdom’s intention to broaden its investments and trade with the United States over the next four years, in the amount of $600 billion, and potentially beyond that,” the Saudi Press Agency reported.It did not give details of the source of the funds, which represent more than half of Saudi GDP, or how they are expected to be used.Prince Mohammed, 39, also passed on congratulations from his father, King Salman, during the call with Trump.Trump’s first visit as president in 2017 was to Saudi Arabia, and this week he joked that a major financial commitment could persuade him to do the same again.”I did it with Saudi Arabia last time because they agreed to buy $450 billion worth of our product,” he said.Trump quipped he would repeat the visit “if Saudi Arabia wanted to buy another 450 or 500 (billion dollars) — we’ll up it for all the inflation”.During Trump’s first term, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco broke with longstanding Arab policy to recognise Israel under the Abraham Accords.The new Trump administration is expected to try to repeat the process with Saudi Arabia, following similar efforts under president Joe Biden.- Iran threats -Saudi Arabia broke off talks with US officials about ties with Israel early in the Gaza war, and has repeatedly insisted it will not recognise Israel without the existence of a Palestinian state.However, a long-awaited ceasefire in Gaza and a possible easing in regional tensions could pave the way for a resumption of dialogue.In exchange for recognising Israel, the Arab world’s richest country hopes to secure a US defence pact and Washington’s help with a civil nuclear programme.In his own call with the crown prince on Thursday, new US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and “the threats posed by Iran and its proxies”, according to a statement.”They also discussed the benefits of the US-Saudi economic partnership and the opportunities to grow their economies in a variety of fields including AI,” a spokesperson for Rubio said. Trump actively courted Saudi Arabia, long an important energy and security partner for Washington, during his first term.When he arrived in Riyadh in 2017, he was treated to an elaborate welcome involving a sword dance and a fly-past of air force jets.Relations later cooled with Prince Mohammed faulting Trump for failing to respond more aggressively after a 2019 attack widely blamed on Iran halved the Gulf kingdom’s crude output.Riyadh and Trump’s team nevertheless sought to boost ties after his departure from the White House, in particular through investments and construction deals for his privately owned conglomerate the Trump Organization. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has defended receiving a Saudi investment in his private equity firm that reports put at $2 billion.

Global stock markets mostly rose Thursday following a tech-fuelled rally on Wall Street spurred by US president Donald Trump’s massive AI-investment announcement.Investors have largely welcomed the first few days of Trump 2.0 as he held off immediately returning to the hardball trade policies of his first term.However, warnings that China, the European Union, Canada and …

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The first Turkish Airlines flight in 13 years landed in the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, an AFP correspondent reported.The plane arrived from Istanbul carrying aid and 345 passengers, including Turkish Airlines CEO Bilal Eksi and Turkish officials, the correspondent said.”The first Turkish Airlines passenger plane landed at Damascus International Airport after a hiatus of some 13 years, with Syrian passengers on board,” Syria’s official news agency SANA reported.Eksi told reporters that Turkish Airlines would operate three flights to Syria a week.”I hope that the flights we have restarted will contribute to the relations between our countries,” he said.Turkey, which has links to the Islamist-led coalition that overthrew longtime president Bashar al-Assad last month, had announced on January 15 that it would resume commercial flights to Damascus.Qatar Airways was the first international carrier to announce it would resume Damascus services, which began on January 7.A Syrian Airlines flight to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates the same day was the first international commercial flight from the airport since Assad’s overthrow on December 8.Aid planes and foreign diplomatic delegations had already been landing in Syria, and domestic flights had also resumed. A flight from Damascus to second city Aleppo on December 18 was the first.