Trump and the Middle East Host a Business Feast—Who Cut the Best Deals?

TradingKey - US President Donald Trump has embarked on his first official visit to the Middle East during his term in office this week, traveling to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Traveling with him was a cohort of U.S. business leaders, aiming to forge stronger ties between American industry and Gulf-region investors. The agenda was clear: to unlock commercial opportunities and position U.S. companies in high-growth sectors across the region.

Within just a few days, the visit yielded over $600 billion in agreements across a range of strategic areas with particular focus on defense, energy, artificial intelligence, and aviation. 

One of the headline-grabbing results was a major arms package to Saudi Arabia, valued at nearly $142 billion — reportedly the largest in U.S. history. The deal includes the potential sale of F-35 fighter jets, a critical revenue stream for Lockheed Martin (LMT). That optimism pushed the company’s stock up 3.55% on May 15. Lockheed is also expected to supply C-130 transport planes, missiles, and radar systems under this multibillion-dollar framework.

Raytheon Technologies (RTX) also walked away with a win. Qatar Airways signed a $1 billion contract with one of its subsidiaries for counter-drone systems. Further bolstering its regional presence, RTX announced plans to establish a technology center in Riyadh, with the potential to secure an additional $1.5 billion in maintenance deals over the next five years. The stock has staged sustained gains, posting six straight days of gains by the end of the trip.

aircraft manufacturers also had their moment. Boeing (BA) and GE Aerospace snagged a massive $96 billion order from Qatar Airways. The deal includes up to 210 U.S.-built planes — mostly 787 Dreamliners and 777X models — as well as over 400 GEnx and GE9X engines supplied by GE. That kind of fleet upgrade underscores the region’s ongoing push to become a global aviation hub.

Delta Air Lines (DAL) also announced a new codeshare agreement with Saudi (Saudi Arabia’s flag carrier), aimed at linking America, Europe, and Asia via Jeddah. The move is expected to bring in around $420 million in additional revenue per year through better route integration.

But maybe the most exciting developments came on the tech front. In anticipation of Trump’s visit, Saudi Arabia’s $900 billion Public Investment Fund (PIF) announced a new state-backed AI firm — Humain. NVIDIA (NVDA) will supply its powerful GB300 chips to build a new 500MW data center. In phase one alone, Humain will use 18,000 of these high-end AI accelerators to create one of the most powerful AI clusters in the world.

Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi is planning a 5-gigawatt data center, in partnership with UAE-based G42 and several American tech firms. According to analysts, it could rival or surpass anything currently deployed for AI globally — reportedly offering capacity for up to 2.5 million NVIDIA B200 chips.

To complement its NVIDIA deal, Humain also signed a $10 billion chip and software agreement with AMD (AMD). That gives the company direct access to two of the world’s most important AI hardware providers. Naturally, this surge in AI projects could ripple through the chip supply chain.

Micron Technology (MU) could benefit as AI workloads increase demand for DRAM and NAND memory. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the go-to chip foundry for both NVIDIA and AMD, is also well positioned for any resulting uptick in orders. And Broadcom (AVGO), known for building high-speed connectivity chips used in large data centers, looks set to win as global AI infrastructure continues to scale.

Cloud players are in on the action too. Amazon (AMZN) and Humain jointly announced a $5 billion investment to create a specialized “AI Zone” in Saudi Arabia. AWS will handle the computing muscle behind Humain’s new AI-agent marketplace — software the Saudi government plans to use across sectors. Meanwhile, OpenAI (not publicly traded) is reportedly considering a new data center in the region as it expands global capacity.

Energy deals were another highlight. Aramco — Saudi Arabia’s state-owned energy giant and the world’s most valuable public energy company — said it had signed 34 memorandums of understanding with U.S. companies, totaling as much as $90 billion in potential partnerships. These span LNG, fuels, chemicals, digital technology, emission reduction and, yes — AI.

In downstream cooperation, Aramco and ExxonMobil (XOM) signed an MoU to explore upgrades and expansion at their SAMREF refinery. And on the upstream side, their talks focused on long-term LNG supply and related infrastructure.

Here are the stocks to watch：

Defense

• Lockheed Martin (LMT): F-35 fighter jets, missiles, and air defense systems.

• Raytheon Technologies (RTX): Missiles, radar systems, anti-drone solutions.

Aviation & Aerospace

• Boeing (BA): 787 and 777X aircraft.

• GE Aerospace (GE): GEnx and GE9X aircraft engines.

• Delta Air Lines (DAL): Codeshare agreement with Saudia.

Semiconductors & AI

• NVIDIA (NVDA): AI chips, supercomputing platforms.

• AMD (AMD): High-performance CPUs/GPUs, AI chip deal.

• TSMC (TSMC): Foundry services for advanced chips used by NVIDIA and AMD.

• Micron Technology (MU): Memory chips (DRAM/NAND) for AI servers.

• Broadcom (AVGO): High-speed interconnect and AI data center chips.

Cloud & Data Infrastructure

• Amazon (AMZN): AWS cloud services, involved in building AI zones and compute capacity in Saudi Arabia.