Remarks Prior to a Meeting With President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

President Mohamed bin Zayed. I would like to welcome you, Mr. President, to the U.A.E. It is a pleasure to meet with you again following our meeting in Florida last year.

I greatly appreciate your visit, as well as the good will you have expressed regarding relations with the U.A.E. since taking office.

Mr. President, for over 50 years, the U.A.E. and the United States have shared a multidimensional strategic partnership and a long-standing friendship grounded in a shared commitment to advancing prosperity and stability in our countries, the region, and the world.

Over the decades, the U.A.E. has been a trusted partner of the United States, both in terms of bilateral relations and in matters of shared concern. We are keen to continue deepening this friendship for the benefit of both our nations and peoples. Your presence here today, Mr. President, affirms that this commitment is mutual.

Diplomatic relations between our two nations was established in 1971, but the connection between our peoples goes back further.

Two doctors who came as missionaries from the church in California have their names etched in the collective memory of the U.A.E. They are Pat and Marian Kennedy. They arrived in in late fifties, working under challenging conditions, at a time when up to one in two infants and one in four mothers died during childbirth. They founded Oasis Hospital, which played a pivotal role in the development of health care in the U.A.E.

A few months after their arrival, Mr. President, I was born in the same hospital that these two American doctors founded. In recognition of their contributions, they were awarded the Abu Dhabi Award in its first edition in 2005. And in 2019, the hospital was renamed Kanad Hospital in their honor. And their family was hosted in Abu Dhabi in gratitude for their service to the people of the U.A.E.

Mr. President, the U.A.E. and the United States share a strong, development-focused partnership. This partnership has taken a significant leap forward since you assumed office, particularly in the areas of the new economy, energy, advanced technology, artificial intelligence, and industry.

A testament to this is the U.A.E.'s plan to invest in the U.S. in these sectors, through the U.A.E.'s investment bodies, at a total value of $1.4 trillion over the next 10 years.

Additionally, major partnerships and projects are underway between private-sector entities in both nations.

Beyond these areas, our countries maintain a strategic partnership in the field of space exploration and the Astronaut Programme and the Asteroid Belt mission. In this context, I would like to share something that may not be widely known. The American spacecraft, Apollo 17, that flew in 1973, had carried the U.A.E. flag on its journey to the moon. That same flag was later sent by NASA to our nation's founding father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, in 1973, along with a fragment of lunar rock.

Sheikh Zayed met with Apollo astronauts on several occasions, and he had a deep and enduring mission for the U.A.E. to reach space.

Mr. President, in March of this year, you stated that the U.A.E. and the United States have long been partners in efforts to bring peace and security to the Middle East and the world. Today I reaffirm to you that the U.A.E. remains committed to working with the United States to advance peace and stability in our region and globally.

Once again, Mr. President, I warmly welcome you, and I am confident that this visit will have a profound and positive impact on the future of our bilateral relations.

Thank you.

President Trump. Well, I'd like to thank you, Your Highness.

What a lot of people don't know—I think my staff is very surprised by it—you and I have been friends for a long time. We've been good friends. And what they don't know about you is that you are considered a truly great warrior, and you've been through the wars. You're a great warrior, a very strong man, a brilliant man, a man of vision like few others—like few others—and highly respected. When they know you, there's tremendous respect. And you're so respected in the Middle East, and it's really amazing.

You know, we've done the tour with two of your very good friends. You know that. And we were talking about you. And I won't tell you everything they said, but I can say it was all good. It was all good. Total admiration and respect for what you've done and who you are. And they said, "When he gives you a handshake, when he makes a deal, that's the deal."

And your wonderful brother came to Washington a few weeks ago, and he told us about your generous statement, as to the $1.4 trillion, and all I could say is, "Thank you very much." We will work very hard to deserve it.

I have absolutely no doubt that the relationship will only get bigger and better. Your relationship and mine can't get better. So I can't say it's going to get better, because it's at the highest level it can be, but our countries will work together.

We're—we've become a very hot country. We were not such a hot country 6 months ago, and now I think we're the hottest country, if you want to know the truth.

We had one little indication. A year ago, we were having a hard time getting people to join the military. "Enlistment," they call it, in our country. We were getting very bad vibes, very unhappy. It was an unhappy country. A lot of foolish things were happening. Stupid things were happening. And we just got—Pete, we just got the numbers. We had the highest enlistment numbers, just about, that we've ever had.

We think probably the highest, but they say—have to be extremely opposite—be, you know, accurate when it comes to the news, because they check every word I say, if there's a little bit of an inaccuracy. But I will tell you, we had just about the best numbers for enlistment we've ever had. Every one of our services.

I'm very proud of Space Force, because I created Space Force. That was my baby. Hadn't been done in 78 years, a force—a new force, and it's doing phenomenally well. We were not winning the space war, and now we're leading it by tremendous margins over Russia and China, primarily. And so we're very proud of it.

But I'm very proud of—and maybe even more so—the enlistment numbers.

So we went from having a hard time getting people to join our Armed Forces—and our police, by the way—to having the best numbers that we've ever had wanting to join. They're proud of our country again. That's a big thing. And to happen so fast—over about a 6- or 7-month period—that's a big honor.

And likewise, the police. Very hard to get police. And now the ranks are bursting and with pride. So that's something that we're very happy about.

We've had investments in our country over the last 3 months—but really 2 months, because it took me a couple of weeks to get started. You know, I had to get a little acclimated again, because we had a very successful first term, as you know. We had one of the most successful economies in history—in the history of our country for first term. It was amazing. We did a lot of things. We rebuilt our military. We did a lot of great things. And I think this is even going to be better.

But we have now, I think, substantially over $10 trillion of investment. And now, when I add the $1.4 trillion, we easily break that number. So that's investment or—or investment that we think will soon happen, and it doesn't include people that are building, because not everybody comes and tells us that they're building, and you know, it's a big country. But we're having numbers that we've never done before.

And that means AI plants. That means—and you know, as an example—a really good example is Apple. Apple is now spending much more than $500 billion on plants. They didn't do that before. They—as you know, they built their plants in another location. We have the biggest computer company: $500 billion. We have Mr. Wei of Taiwan is spending $200 billion. And Jensen is—who's great. Jensen Huang is spending $500 billion.

We have numbers that nobody has ever seen before. That all means jobs. Because to me, the most important: jobs. I want jobs.

And we have—costs are way down. Groceries are w-—they have a term, "grocery." It's an old term, but it means basically what you're buying in food. It's a pretty accurate term, but it's an old-fashioned sound. But groceries are down. Costs are down.

Eggs are down. They were—first week, they were hitting me with—eggs were up 200 percent, and now they're down to a number that is amazing. We're down 97, 98 percent from where they were. And everybody—they said, "You won't have eggs for Easter." Well, we had egg—everybody had eggs for Easter at—at a very reasonable price.

At the White House, we had our little Easter Egg Roll, and we had hundreds of thousands of eggs purchased. They said, "You have to go out and buy plastic eggs." That didn't work out.

So we've done a real job, and our energy costs are way down. The energy is way down. Gasoline is down. And we have almost no inflation. So we've got the economy back.

We've got a border now that's very powerful—99.9 percent—and nobody would have believed that was possible. That was a real mess.

And we had, frankly, an incompetent previous administration. I know you weren't thrilled with them. They abandoned people. And it wasn't that they abandoned; they didn't bother to call people back. They treated people with great disrespect, but part of it was a level of stupidity that we've never seen before.

And I'm glad we arrived, and I know you—people also woo you. You know, you're an amazing country. You're a rich country. You can have your choice, but I know you'll never leave my side. I really feel—I know that. And you know the special relationship that we have and our country has. So our country is back with you.

And our country is back in a lot of ways. We have a country with tremendous spirit right now. Tremendous. They haven't seen anything like it.

I would say this: We're far ahead of schedule. If you would have told me these numbers in a year or year and a half from now, I would have been very happy with them. But think that substantially more than $10 trillion—you'll have numbers of other Presidents where they won't do a trillion dollars in many, many—in a long time—$1 trillion. We did it in 2 months—because, again, you figure 3, but let me have 1 month of fixing up the Oval Office. In other words, getting things ready.

And I look forward to having you in the White House. We'll celebrate together.

But we are going to be your friend, and we're going to be your partner. And we really appreciate your confidence and—and investment. That's your biggest investment that you've ever made. And we really appreciate it, and we're going to treat you very—as you should be—magnificently.

And you're a magnificent man, and it's an honor to be with you.

[At this point, President Mohamed bin Zayed spoke briefly in English as follows.]

President Mohamed bin Zayed. It's my honor, Mr. President. [Inaudible]

President Trump. Thank you very much.

President Mohamed bin Zayed. Thank you, sir.

President Trump. Thank you.

[President Mohamed bin Zayed then presented President Trump with the Order of Zayed, the highest civil decoration of the United Arab Emirates.]