Trump and MBS: A Love Story in an Office That Deserves Better

A trillion-dollar promise, a fistful of grievances, and a masterclass in how not to run an international partnership.

If there was ever a moment when the walls of the Oval Office deserved hazard pay, it was this meeting: Donald Trump presiding over a lavish mutual-admiration society with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom he repeatedly praised as a “great man,” “future king,” and “one of the most respected people in the world.” This was a literal public staging of the new geopolitical love story of 2025: Trump and MBS, together again, united in their commitment to making each other look enormous.

Trump opened the session with his signature flourish. America, he declared, is now “the hottest country in the world,” a line delivered with the self-assurance of a man convinced that GDP, the weather, and his personal mood are all the same metric. As proof, he unveiled a brand-new fantasy figure: “Twenty-one trillion dollars will be invested in the United States in one year.” He repeated it often, presumably hoping that if he said it with enough confidence, the number would stop sounding like something a caffeinated MBA student scribbled on a napkin.