Donald of Arabia

“We want two large glasses of lemonade,” said President Donald Trump to the bartender.

“This is a bar for British officers,” replied the diminutive man behind the marble counter.

“That’s alright,” said Trump. “We are not particular.”

After a short, sharp, shouting match, a senior officer walked up and officiously demanded to know, “What’s going on?”

Trump stared at the bartender and sternly instructed, “Lemonade with ice.”

Then, Trump turned to the new man and announced, “We’ve taken Aqaba.”

“Who has?” asked the visibly astonished Brit.

“We have,” replied Trump. “Our side in this war has.”

And then, as Trump’s sidekick downed his cool drink, Trump turned to the bartender and said, “He likes your lemonade.”

Okay, I’m just kidding. It wasn’t Donald Trump at the British officers’ bar, it was the late Peter O’Toole, playing T.E. Lawrance, of Lawrence of Arabia fame. And the “lemonade scene” is among the most iconic moments in one of the greatest movies in the history of cinema.

“He likes your lemonade.” Screen shot from Lawrence of Arabia.

The backstory, which has the benefit of being true, is that Lawrence had just spent many months living at the edge of survival in the Arabian desert. There, under austere and deadly conditions, he befriended tribes, assembled a potent fighting force, brought this combat power to the side of Great Britain, and defeated the army of Ottoman Turkey.

In short and against all odds, Lawrence scored a massive operational-strategic victory. What Winston Churchill and British war planners failed to accomplish at Gallipoli, Lawrence spectacularly achieved in the Arabian desert. That is, he all but won the war in the Middle East for Britain while, back at their fancy drinking club, Lawrence’s hidebound, rear-echelon colleagues were entirely unaware.

This historical/cinematic episode came to mind last week as I watched President Trump descend from the skies in Air Force 1, the 35-year-old Boeing 747-200, museum-artifact aircraft in which he flew to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

And by the time Trump departed from the region, he had commitments for upwards of $2 trillion of Middle East money for American interests, plus a brand-new Boeing 747-800 to top it off.

Where to Begin?

Indeed, Trump’s spectacular results speak for themselves; the only question is where to begin? Well, for our purposes in The Morning Reckoning let’s look at just a few eye-popping financial metrics.

In Saudi Arabia, Trump presided over deals totaling in excess of $600 billion at face value, with much more to come. This includes over $142 billion in foreign military sales that will benefit the likes of Lockheed, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, L3-Harris and many more.

Meanwhile, the Saudi national oil company Aramco announced over $90 billion in deals with Schlumberger, Halliburton, Baker Hughes and even Nvidia. And Aramco also inked a memo with ExxonMobil to upgrade a major refinery located in the U.S.

Another branch of the Saudi state signed a deal for over $14 billion to purchase power and electrical equipment from GE Vernova, a stand-alone spinout from the old General Electric Company. And still another Saudi business arm finalized a deal with U.S.-based MP Materials to develop rare earth deposits on the Arabian landmass.

In neighboring Qatar, Trump finalized agreements presently worth over $240 billion, with the Qatari government promising to increase the value to over $1.2 trillion in years to come.

Two major contracts for U.S. firms involve Qatar Airlines and its agreement to buy 210 new-build cargo and passenger airliners from Boeing, worth over $90 billion, powered by jet engines from GE Aerospace, the new name of what remains of the old General Electric Company.

Meanwhile, Qatar agreed to upgrade military facilities in its country to the tune of $10 billion, all at the disposal of U.S. forces. That, and Qatar will also buy U.S. military equipment in amounts that total several billions, benefitting Raytheon, General Atomics, and a host of other U.S. defense contractors.

Later in Trump’s trip across Araby, he visited the UAE to preside over at least $200 billion more in deals for U.S. interests. These included another major purchase of Boeing airliners and GE engines by Etihad Airlines, in the range of $15 billion. While an Emirates company in the aluminum business agreed to invest over $4 billion in Oklahoma, to construct a new U.S. smelter for that metal.

All this and more, from oil and minerals in the rocks, to power systems, to engineering and construction, to AI centers and advanced computer chips, to planes in the sky, and even a deal for Elon Musk and his Starlink company to provide satellite and internet services.

Indeed, last week Donald of Arabia was winning wars, in a manner of speaking. And he was washing it all down with ice-cold lemonade, to continue the Lawrence-analogy from above.

Trump the Dealmaker

Of course, these above-noted deals didn’t just happen because Trump climbed into the big, blue presidential jet and flew across the ocean. Heck, anybody can fly across the ocean. And indeed, just a couple years ago when then-President Joe Biden went to Saudi, he received little more than a grudging fist-bump from the top guys.

And it’s not like anyone rolls out of bed and decides to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on defense equipment, airliners, AI data centers, oil refineries or aluminum smelters, satellite constellations, or whatever else.

No, these Trump-deals of last week were months in the making, and the culmination of much hard work by American firms and U.S. government sponsors like the Pentagon or Department of Commerce. Although to be sure, it’s likely that finalizing these massive deals – getting money on its way to the bank – had much to do with President Trump being in the White House, as opposed to, say, President Kamala (ugh… hurts my fingers to type that).

That is, with Trump we have a dealmaker. Indeed, Trump’s career is framed by his dealmaking, and his intense drive to make things happen. His book, The Art of the Deal, speaks for itself; in fact, even the New York Times, in a long-ago review, once opined that, “Trump makes one believe for a moment in the American dream again. (sic)”

Umm… Well… Yes. As in, the New York Times may or may not believe in “the American dream,” but Trump’s $2 trillion in new, Middle East money sure will shake things up here at home.

Look at it this way; usually, a president goes before Congress and askes for hundreds of billions to (ahem) “stimulate” the economy. And Congress passes authorization and appropriations bills that spit out a Niagara of new funding, administered by bureaucrats via all sorts of not-very-efficient federal agencies. And the U.S. government goes deeper and deeper into debt.

Not this time. No, because the fact is that Donald of Arabia went to Saudi, Qatar and UAE, and came home with $2 trillion of investment commitments. And it was other people’s money! All focused on critical, high-tech sectors of the U.S. economy: defense, aerospace, AI, energy, satellites, etc. Trump skipped Congress and the federal bureaucracy.

And what did this investment coup cost U.S. taxpayers? Well, most of the expense was the price of jet fuel for Air Force 1 and the cargo planes that hauled Trump’s supporting entourage overseas. In other words, a pittance in terms of the return on investment.

Oh, and while Trump was over there, the scandal du jour was that the Qatar government wants to gift a nice, modern Boeing 747-800 jet to the United States. But the American tribe of perpetual and eternal Trump critics chimed in about the “Emoluments Clause” of the Constitution.

Oh, give me a break… Again, it’s like those stuffy, uptight British officers bellyaching that T.E. Lawrence wanted to offer a glass of lemonade to his Arab helper, right after he won the war against Turkey.

The Art of the Optics

Along these lines of public perception, what can we make of the optics of Trump’s trip? Well, nothing says “Happy to see you” like an escort of Trump’s Air Force 1 flight by F-15 fighter planes.

Qatar F-15 jets accompany Air Force 1 over Doha. Getty images.

Or how about that royal greeting in Saudi? Not just red carpet, but an imperial purple.

President Trump and Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman. Courtesy Mena.com.

Some commentators referred to a “lavender”-colored carpet, but perhaps they don’t know the history of this shade of visible spectrum.

In ancient times, before modern organic chemistry and aniline dyes, purple was among the most exotic colors. People concentrated this color into a dye only via immense labor and only with great difficulty, by gathering and grinding up a certain rare species of clamshells. And the right to wear this color, let alone walk on a carpet of this hue, was reserved exclusively to emperors under penalty of death to anyone else.

So consider, again, how that Saudi purple carpet might just hold more symbolic meaning of that nation’s view of Trump than less well-informed observers discern at first glance.

Forging a New Kind of Alliance

Meanwhile at the highest political levels, Donald of Arabia worked to rally Arabian leaders toward the U.S. cause, which is no small feat in a world where China offers vast inducements through its Belt and Road initiatives.

In formal speeches and addresses, as well as in many casual quips, Trump was respectful toward his host nations, and more broadly towards Arab culture and particularly Islam. Meanwhile, Trump pulled the flush-handle on quite a bit of past American policy towards the Middle East, if not the world.

In terms of diplomacy, Trump offered a strong dose of classic Realpolitik: “We are not here to lecture,” declared Trump. “We are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship,” he added, speaking in an ornate room in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. “Instead, we are here to offer partnership, based on shared interests and values; to pursue a better future for us all.”

In almost the same breath, Trump offered an olive branch to Iran and promoted the Abraham Accords, meaning political recognition of Israel.

All in all, and quite clearly during this important and historic visit, Trump’s goal was to move the ball towards recognition of Israel and de-escalate tensions with Iran. It’s part of Trump’s vision to transform the broad Middle East into a region of peace, development and commerce, versus a global locus of generational warfare.

This is Trump’s gambit, and now the future must unfold. Will this idea and approach work? Hey, who knows? But give the man credit for trying, and hence the title of this note, Donald of Arabia.

Really… at the end of the day can Trump’s vision be any worse than what we’ve experienced in the Middle East over the past 25 years? Past 50? Past 75? The past century?

In many respects, Trump has just accomplished as much to alter the face of the Middle East as did T.E. Lawrence, who walked into the officers’ club and asked for two glasses of lemonade, with ice. Plus, Trump is bringing $2 trillion home to the U.S. economy.

That’s all for now. Thank you for subscribing and reading.