Remarks at a U.S.-U.A.E. Business Council Breakfast Roundtable in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

President Trump. Well, thank you very much. And it's an honor to be with so many great businesspeople and friends of mine from this area and from back in the United States. You came, and it's an honor that you did.

This has been an amazing 4-day period—I think, like none other. There has never been anything like it, actually. And I'm quoting sources that don't particularly prefer me. There's just not been anything like what we've done in the last 4 days.

But I want to thank His Highness, and I want to also thank His Highness Sheikh Tahnoon for welcoming us to this beautiful, beautiful palace—beautiful place, just generally. Thank you all. Thank you very much. It was very exciting.

I also want to recognize all of the officials here from the area, as well as the many extraordinary business leaders with us today. We have some of the biggest business leaders, and they've been here over the last couple of days.

And you know, there's a great relationship with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and U.A.E. There's great friendships, I can tell you that. At the top level, the relationship and friendship is good. It's a really unified Middle East. It's something that we haven't seen.

The U.S. was absent for 4 years. We didn't really know too much what we were doing for 4 years, and things were not going good. Other people were courting the Middle East, but they won't even waste their time in courting them any longer.

The people in this room have helped commence [commerce; White House correction] between the United States and United Arab Emirates grow $34 billion a year, America's second-highest total in the Middle East. The—and catching—I mean, going—but you know, the other one is going up very quickly also.

The United States has also put one—$19.5 billion trade surplus with the U.A.E., and we are really thriving economically. And over the last period of time—we started it 8 years ago, the relationship. Then it was interrupted, as you know—sadly interrupted—and not much happened. Nothing happened, actually. But the relationship is now at a much higher level than it ever was, and it's going to only go in one direction, because of the relationship.

We have American companies. We have Exxon, Oracle, RTX, Quailcomm [Qualcomm; White House correction], and many others—too many to name. Disney. I see the new theme park is going to be incredible. Bob Iger was in my office the other day, and he was showing it to me. It's going to be incredible.

But we're making great progress toward the $1.4 trillion that U.A.E. has announced that it intends to spend in the United States over the next couple of years.

Yesterday the two countries also agreed to create a path for U.A.E. to buy some of the world's most advanced AI semiconductors from American companies—a very big contract. This will generate billions and billions of dollars in business and accelerate the U.A.E.'s plans to become a really major player in artificial intelligence.

And I read where the oil and gas—and oil is great, but you're going to have equally big and maybe even bigger—at some point, you'll be surpassing it—with AI and other businesses. So it's a—that's a great tribute to the job you've done here.

The United Arab Emirates is also making incredible strides in industries like energy, real estate, and manufacturing, and I see it just in the drive out. And when you look at this building, this building is amazing. We were here last night in the big auditorium, and it's amazing. There's really nothing like it.

The global aluminum from the Emirates has been the talk of the aluminum business. They're very big with aluminum. And now they're going to be spending a tremendous amount of money in one of my favorite places, Oklahoma, on expansion. And they—I said, "Just build your plant inside the United States, and you have no tariffs," and that's exactly what they're doing. And that's what many, many companies are doing—the auto companies, all of them.

There's never been anything like what's happening right now to the United States, I can tell you. Nothing. There's never been anything like it. We're at a level that no country has seen, I don't believe. We have—I mean, every time I meet, I end—I usually increase it by about a trillion dollars because we get news of another investment.

But we're probably in the $12- to $13 trillion range of investments. And you can have a administration go for years and not have anything like that. And not only not that; have less than $8 trillion. And we're—I think we're heading toward the $12- to $13 trillion between projects already announced—mostly announced, but some are going to be announced very shortly and—literally, very shortly.

And two things are the factor: number one, November 5. That was the election. We had the most successful election that—in memory. They said—one of the major media sources said the most consequential election in 129 years. And that gives us a mandate. It gives us a mandate to do the right things for businesses. We can do what we want to do, because there was so much incompetence shown in the last 4 years that people just don't want that. They don't want to have that anymore, whether it's the border, where people pour into our country without being even checked or looked at. Twenty-one million people. Many of them are not the people you want. I'm going to be very nice because this is a little bit different setting, but they're not the people you want.

But we now have 99.9 percent closed. Nobody thought that was possible.

We had a very successful border the first time. I won the election the first time, in 2016, because of the border. We made it very good very fast. But now it's even at a new level, because I built hundreds of miles of wall, which we didn't have in the first election because I hadn't started that yet.

But we will soon have a very safe country. We're getting people out. We need help from the courts. The courts are trying to think that they're taking privilege that they shouldn't have. That was not what the election was all about. The election was they want—they want people that shouldn't be there—people that are criminals, in many cases—they want them out. They want them out. And we're going to get them out fast.

We just reached a fantastic trade deal, as you know, with the United Kingdom, which was wonderful. And we have another big one that we just reached with China. The China deal is a very big deal. It's in the process of continuing to be formed, but they wanted to make that deal very badly.

And we have, at the same time, 150 countries that want to make a deal, but you're not able to see that many countries. So, at a certain point, over the next 2 to 3 weeks, I think Scott and Howard will be sending letters out, essentially telling people—and we'll be very fair, but we'll be telling people what they'll be paying to do business in the United States. They'll essentially be paying to be doing business in the United States.

I guess you could say they could appeal it, but, for the most part, I think we're going to be very fair. But it's not possible to meet the number of people that want to see us.

And—but this was—coming to U.A.E. was very important. Coming to Saudi Arabia and Qatar was very important to me because of personal relationships that I had, maybe more than anything else.

So it's been an amazing period of time. People have said very, very—I mean, I don't know, we're developing a lot of fans, but people have said they've never seen anything like has taken place over the last 4 days in terms of investment, in terms of the kind of money coming back into the United States.

And all that money, it—the money is a nice word, but it's really jobs. We have jobs that are at a level that we very soon will not be able to—nobody can duplicate it, and people want to be our partner. They want to be investing in the United States. And they weren't doing that. They weren't happy with the United States for a pretty long period of time.

So we've done something that I'm very proud of. We'll be heading back now, and I look forward to that—going back to D.C.

I just had a little announcement of a beautiful grandchild, a boy—Tiffany and Michael. So we're very excited about that. I look forward to that.

I probably should have left yesterday, but I couldn't disappoint you. Your father would have been extremely upset with me, and you would have been more upset.

Crown Prince Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates. He would have understood, sir. [Laughter]

President Trump. We had such a beautiful evening, and they planned it so beautifully. I said, "I'm going to have to wait just a little bit."

But the way we were treated by your family, the way we were treated by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and others has just been so—I'm very proud to be representing the United States of America. And thank you all for being here.

And, media, thank you very much. You've been very fair.

Thank you very much.